


Beast-monster things

by StyrofoamBoots



Category: Warcraft - All Media Types, World of Warcraft
Genre: Angst, F/M, Flashbacks, Gap Filler, Time Travel, Tragic Romance, Undeath
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-26
Updated: 2019-08-25
Packaged: 2019-10-16 12:13:58
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 16
Words: 27,232
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17549501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/StyrofoamBoots/pseuds/StyrofoamBoots
Summary: The events in the story take place in the time frame between the burning of Teldrassil and the battle for Undercity. In order to gain an advantage over the Alliance in the upcoming war, the Banshee Queen negotiates a deal with a certain member of the Bronze Dragonflight.





	1. Ruins of Lordaeron

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first attempt to write fanfic. I've been intrigued by those two ever since I re-subscribed to WoW a few months ago, after a very long break. Their connection is one of the few things that paint them as anything other than evil.

A strange flap of wings drew Sylvanas Windrunner’s attention. The keen senses of the huntress, not lost upon death, roused her: she perked up her left ear and searched the skies for something - anything. In times like this, alertness was a matter of utmost importance.

Her search led her to the top of the tallest spire in the ruins of Lordaeron, ascending to the dark skies. The cold did not disturb her. Her lithe elven frame was tense as she peered in the distance, through eyes that glimmered in unnatural red. Not many of the Forsaken could be seen from her viewpoint: when they settled in the capital city of Lordaeron, most of them chose to dwell in its lower grounds, once a shady hideout and now a city of crumbling undead outcasts and rejects. This was her home, but recently, as the Horde’s warchief, she was forced to spend most of her time in Orgrimmar. 

The murky waters of Lordaemere lake stretched in front of her, dim light and fog hiding that which was beyond it, as if framing a faded painting. Sylvanas clenched her fists: the Alliance can pry all of this from her cold, dead hands. Ever since their return from Kalimdor, it was certain that they would try to do so.

"You cannot kill hope", that twerp of a Kaldorei captain said to her. Sylvanas had the power to kill whatever she desired to, and none can suggest otherwise. She was quick to prove the Kaldorei wrong. "Hope" was a meaningless word anyway, a grand delusion. The night elves did not deserve to have hope in any case, in a universe in which all she deserved was an existence bereft of joy, with a promise of eternal damnation in the very end. 

Unless they win this war, that is.

Introspection led to a sliver of regret, prickling like needles - not for the elves lost, but for the tactical miscalculation. Setting Telsdrassil ablaze was but a foolish impulse, which would end up costing her soon. Their retaliation was imminent, and she could not afford for it to succeed, nor could her people.

It suddenly occurred to Sylvanas that what raised her ire more than all was Delaryn’s suggestion that Sylvanas had envied the living. The words of a dazed, half-conscious woman, on the brink of death, should not have reached her. She usually possessed more control than this - why, then?

A single pitch-black bird had perched on the spire's ledge. This is what brought her up here. Sylvanas tilted her head sideways. A raven, perhaps. An oddity, perched on the parapet. Living things no longer come near her. She was once a guardian of the forests and wildlife of her homeland, a ranger, but that was a lifetime ago. Curiously, she perked her ear to listen to its raspy, caw-like calls. 

Only when the bird had spreads its wings in full was she able to inspect the wingspan and learn the truth: while its body was whole, its rotting, partly-skeletal wingspan revealed the bird's state of undeath. Flesh and sinew were dangling off the right wing. Soon it won't be able to fly anymore. The long term effects of the plague of undeath it were now well-known.

What "hope" is there for this bird? She reached out to beckon it over, but the raven rose and flew away in fear immediately.

Sylvanas narrowed her eyes to thin slits at it. "Suit yourself, little pest". She raised her bow in the air, preparing a black arrow for the winged creature. She swiftly imbued the arrowhead with shadow magic, but then lowered her bow and decided to spare the bird after all.

Her champion, Nathanos Blightcaller, loathed birds. He calls them 'filthy, screeching things'. The thought brought a smile to her lips. 

A rustle was heard; familiar footsteps. Someone was climbing up the spire. A dark ranger came up the spiral stairwell.

"Are you here to report anything in particular, Anya?" Sylvanas addressed the incoming figure coldly. She came here expecting to ruminate alone. "Any recent sightings of the Alliance?"

Dark ranger Anya bowed down as she spoke, her black hood hiding her pale features almost entirely. If she noticed the Dark Lady's tone, she made no comment. "My queen, we've had no sightings of the Alliance, apart from one woman. A human".

"A lone human?” Sylvanas arched an eyebrow. “Go on".

Anya looked up at her ruler as she spoke, still crouched in front of the banshee queen. "Her garments suggests she's a priestess, but we're uncertain. Unarmed. There is... strange magic around her though. It's not holy light, not quite. I cannot put my finger on it”. Many Forsaken felt a strong sense of discomfort, pain even, when coming in contact with the light.

“I did not kill her right away. Dark ranger Velonara thought you might want to interrogate her yourself", she suggested cautiously.

Her interest piqued, Sylvanas nodded. "Where was she captured?"

"Outside the city's gates, on a small hill overlooking the ruins of Lordaeron", answered Anya.

"And where is she now?" asked Sylvanas.

"She's held downstairs, at the Magic Quarter", replied the dark ranger.

"Perhaps she was just heading for her Sunday mass at the cathedral of light", commented Sylvanas sarcastically. "I do wish to interrogate her, indeed. You may accompany me. We'll go now".

"Yes, Dark Lady", nodded the ranger; clearly satisfied to be accepting this unexpected reward. When she rose up on her feet, Sylvanas was already hurrying down the spiralling stairwell, and she rushed to follow her.


	2. The Magic Quarter

The Magic Quarter was as quiet as a graveyard, apart from a handful of arcanist scholars, warlocks and their unleashed petty demons. The walls were covered with fully stocked bookshelves, which books were organized in an order only sensible to a selected few. A skeletal mage was trying to levitate his wand in the stale air trapped underground, but he lost his focus and it hit the floor with a loud thud. A colony of bats hung from the ceiling, as if spectating the studies.

The two undead women made their way quickly through narrow passageways to a large hall with a high ceiling, equipped with large iron cages. Today they were uncharacteristically empty of prisoners, apart from the one middle-aged woman, clad in an elegant white priestly robes, which lapels were trimmed with fine black and gold silk. Sylvanas motioned towards dark ranger Anya, who remained at the door to stand guard, one hand placed on the hilt of her sword.

The Banshee Queen circled the cage slowly, studying the human.   
  
"You seem a bit... displaced", she had addressed the woman in the Common tongue and smiled cunningly. "Tell me, what solicited this visit of yours here in the Undercity?" 

The priestess remained silent, but Sylvanas observed that her pupils had widened in dismay. Her gaze fell on the iron skulls decorating Sylvanas’s shoulder armor.

“Are you you spying for the Alliance? You don’t strike me as an SI-7 type”, Sylvanas prodded her further.  
  
The priestess kept quiet still. 

"Are you with The Scarlet Crusade perhaps? If it's undeath you were looking for, then I can most certainly accommodate you. Have you met my val’kyrs yet?" proceeded Sylvanas, as she ran her gloved finger slowly along the cage's iron bars. Perhaps the threat of use of necromancy would frighten her into talking.

The priestess recoiled at Sylvanas's movements, and uttered what sounded like a serious of swear words in a foreign language Sylvanas could not comprehend. She suddenly noticed that her eyes were not a normal human-brown shade, but a deeper yellow.

"It's Draconic", dark ranger Anya's voice was heard from the back of the room.

Sylvanas turned her head around to peer at her in surprise. "Are you fluent in their tongue, Anya?"

"Only a few words. We used to have a compendium kept here in the Undercity, 'Draconic For Dummies - Chapter IV'. It was stolen a few years ago", replied Anya. "If my memory serves me right, this specific dragon just called you a lunatic harpy", she added. "And there was something about your mother’s... ogrish heritage".

"Impressive, dark ranger", said Sylvanas, her ashen-color lips curled in a satisfied grin. "Your snooping is finally put to good use".

It's not every day that they manage to capture a dragon down here. Occasional pesky gnomes, Scarlet Crusaders, petty demons, but never a dragon. They were powerful beings, created by the titans themselves. She never tortured an invader of this sort. Their physiology may be somewhat different, but all species can feel pain. "Tell me, foul-mouth wyrm - What is your name, then?"

The priestess' voice reverberated through the large hall: "Zidormi".

"Of the bronze dragonflight?" asked Anya.

The priestess confirmed: "Nozdormu's own brood. You’d certainly bring his wrath upon yourself by slaying me, be sure of that. My flight's invasion would be worse the Alliance's upcoming one tenfold", she added.

Sylvanas seemed to consider it. "I'm a risk taker. Shape-shift back now, wyrm. I shall end you in your true form. Surely that's a more respectable death for your kind". So I could raise you later to undeath as a skeletal dragon, Sylvanas thought to herself.

"You'd have to let me out of this cage first. It's too small to contain my true form", Zidormi responded.

Sylvanas and Anya exchanged amused looks. "Nice try", said Sylvanas as she drew a small dagger from her leather belt. "Now, before we test your human disguise's tolerance to pain... you still haven't told me why you're here".

Zidormi's eyes started glowing yellow as she spoke, her voice echoing through the great hall. "My kin... as you know, we are the protectors of time. We explore, catalog and guard the fabric of time from unraveling. I myself had developed an interest in mortal Lordaeronian history - past and future history, that is. Some of the most fascinating grains of sand in my collection were gathered here, on this very ground, as you know”.

“I do not dwell in the past”, replied Sylvanas curtly, eyes narrowed. 

“Well, I do. We do. In the past and the future as well”, said the dragon. “I have seen how it all started, and I know how it ends. I know that you will not end my life today, not yet", she brazenly declared, and Sylvanas suspected her seemingly-calm tone of voice was meant to reassure herself.

"And why is that?" asked Sylvanas, still dangerously close to cage's bars.

"I have something you want. Something that can be of use to you", bargained the dragoness. She raised her hands slowly and reached for her neck. A simple brass brass key was dangling off a string tied around her neck. It did not glow of magic in the dim light of the Undercity, but Sylvanas's eyes fixated on it nonetheless. "In exchange for my freedom", Zidormi added. 

Sylvanas’s eyes moved back to peer at the dragon-woman's face.

"Anya, shut the door. From outside. I wish to have a word with Zidormi, alone". Anya nodded once before obeying the command, and Sylvanas sheathed her dagger back.

When Sylvanas exited the door too, a short while after, Anya was standing guard outside. The two walked on in silence. Sylvanas saw Anya sneaking a peek back briefly - but the dragon was no longer there.

"Will you be taking Blightcaller with you?" The dark ranger hesitated before raising the question.

"Why do you ask?” replied Sylvanas sharply. The overly-talkative nature of her underlings seldom raised her ire, but this was... personal. “Go back to your duties now!" 

Sylvanas rethought her words. Apparently, her ranger was clever enough to guess what Sylvanas had been negotiating with the wyrm.

"Anya!" she called.

The dark ranger has turned around to face Sylvanas once more.

"You can take pride of your work today. Your service of the Forsaken is invaluable".

The dark ranger bowed deeply at the words of praise before leaving.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> There really is a book titled 'Draconic For Dummies' in the Undercity. It was once part of the quest chain to open the AhnQiraj gates.


	3. The War Quarter

Sylvanas strode through the maze of dark alleyways of the Undercity, the plain brass key initially cold in her already-icy palm. The undead maintained no body heat; yet, as she held it tight, she had thought the small metal object was slowly getting a bit warmer than it was before. 

The War Quarter was but a short stroll from the Magic Quarter, and several Forsaken denizens, ghouls, spectres and other sycophants greeted by bowing as she passed by them. "Dark Lady, watch over us", muttered one jawless undead woman. Sylvanas nodded at her sternly in return. The people of Undercity often affiliated her with god-like abilities, an all-seeing being watching over them from a great distance. In her vanity, she did not bother to correct them. They mustn’t know of how she lost her bearings in Darkshore, lest they lose their faith in her.

The harsh, rumbling voice of her champion, echoed through the hall. Nathanos Blightcaller was demonstrating to newly-raised Forsaken how to nock an arrow properly. Not all of them were successful in doing so, and Sylvanas spectated, amused as his already-meager patience wore thin. 

Many years ago, when they were still alive and she was the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, she had trained him in the mastery of archery herself. He was a natural tactician, cunning and ambitious. His eagerness to master the ways of elven rangers has paid off: she had watched him turn into a skilled marksman, and fought the Thalassian political leadership to name him her Ranger-Lord. He was quite skilled in areas other than archery too, she was delighted to discover later on, but it was all a too-distant pleasant memory now. 

She pulled her mind out of the gutter quickly when she noticed Blightcaller observing her, and wore her most matter-of-fact expression once more.

Nathanos dismissed the class: "alright, you incompetent imbeciles. We're done for the day. Imbecile number one, you over there - store all quivers and bows in the cabinet in the corner over there, to the right. Imbecile number two - yes, that’s you - gather the arrows left on the floor”.

Blightcaller sighed deeply in exasperation and rolled his eyes. “Those of you whose arrows managed to actually hit the target dummies - get to stay with us for the rest of the training course. Those who did not get to start the course over, until they figure out how to shoot a blasted target properly".  
  
"You, however", he turned and pointed at a scrawny-looking undead man, who must have been quite young when he died. The man had one of his own arrows stuck to his left foot. "Go... help Jeremiah Payson herd cockroaches or something”.

The man hesitated. "You still linger here? Get out of my sight!" ordered Blightcaller.

Sylvanas beckoned him over, and Nathanos obeyed, bowing deeply before he rose again to look in her eyes. They now shone in a red glow, which matched hers, since his transformation through the val’kyr's dark ritual. 

"How is the new generation of recruits looking, Blightcaller?"

"Some are utterly useless, but it was my job to fix that, Dark Lady", he replied, rabidly loyal as always. He was one of the few in her inner circle she could still trust, since the betrayal of Varimathras. "I suppose you're here about the upcoming attack", added Nathanos.

"Among other matters", said Sylvanas. "Brief me, then".

"The city's walls have been fortified. The blight barrels are placed and ready for use. The magical protection wards have been reapplied in all quarters, including the throne room. Our Dark Ranger scouts have been scouring the woods for Alliance presence, so far without evidence of such. Yet”.

"Well then." She eyed him up and down for a moment. "Now... you shall escort me to my private chambers".

"Y-yes, my queen", he replied - not without raising an eyebrow at the rare invitation, and followed her.


	4. The Banshee Queen's Quarters

"I simply fail to understand", said Blightcaller. "At the risk of stating the obvious here, undeath is irreversible. The royal apothecary association have researched this thoroughly. There is no cure - nor would I think you ever wished for there to be one".

They were sitting on her four-poster bed, which was covered in a dusty burgundy velvet bedspread. The undead did not require sleep, so the covers were seldom disturbed. The brass key was laid on the covers between them. Sylvanas’s cloak was set aside on the bed as well, and she let her pale silver hair rest on her shoulders.

The grim room was otherwise sparsely decorated, and lit only by sconces on the wall. On the end table near her bed were a now-defunct ancient astrolabe and a grotesque demonic skull, a keepsake she brought here from their war against the Burning Legion. On the wall was a small collection of daggers, some of them still imbued with enough unholy magic to pulse in a faint lilac glow.

In the privacy of her chambers, she allowed him to be less formal with her. Across the room was an antique rounded table, on which was a chess board. The chess pieces were carved to resemble king Menethil’s knights and rooks. Nathanos had beat her in only five moves a few minutes ago, and her pieces were lying on his side of the table - does he know she had let him win, Sylvanas wondered. 

“I never said this was a cure”, she ran her fingers through her almost-colorless hair as she spoke. “This is a mission - a short one, a few days at most. The bronze dragonflight are able to manipulate time, to some extent. I negotiated a certain... deal with our prisoner. There is something I wish to retrieve from my former self's estate”. 

“What is it, then?” asked Nathanos.

“Maps, which belonged to my ancestor, Talanas Windrunner. They were locked in a cabinet, and I was forbidden from perusing them when I was younger. They depict the land of Kalimdor to a high level of detail”. She paused to measure his reactions.

“This will help us win the war with the Alliance, Nathanos. They will drop like flies". The excitement in her voice was genuine.

Nathanos frowned. Since the val'kyr's dark ritual, a gift she bestowed upon him, his restored features resembled his living ones again, albeit much paler, ashen even. 

"Any maps that were drawn by your ancestor's cartographers and scribes would be rendered obsolete by the cataclysm. The terrain is different now", he countered her argument. 

Sylvanas's eyes flared redder in annoyance.

"Must you always quarrel with me?!" she seethed. Part of her had hoped he'd desire to accompany her. Another part of her feared he'd see this as a trip down memory lane, a naive longing to rejoin the living for a short while.  
She never shared Delaryn's last words with him.

"I'm fully aware of that", she changed to a a calmer tone. "But we are at a tactical disadvantage here. The northern parts of Darkshore are a mystery to us. We cannot rely on our naval fleet alone to transport all soldiers. Our telemancers cannot create stable portals to uncharted territories. Exploration starts with mapping. We'll fix the inaccuracies as we go along".

Nathanos picked up the brass key in his gloved hand and squinted at it. "A mission, you say". He placed the key back on the velvet bedspread, between them.

"The dragon cannot, or will not teleport us directly to western Quel'thalas. We are to enter her portal here, to a time before the third war, journey to Windrunner village, retrieve the maps and make our way back", she elaborated. "We'll assume our old living forms temporarily for the duration of the journey, naturally. This may be an inconvenience, but a temporary one. It is the best disguise - the only one that would let me in the Windrunner estate, to retrieve this heirloom". 

As soon as Nathanos heard her words, he raised his eyes to stare at her in bewilderment. Sylvanas let him mull this over for a spell. After so many years by his side, she was accustomed to his gruff nature, the long silences, even the petty arguments. After all, she had always won them, eventually. At times, she wondered if they simply took pleasure in provoking one another, for spite, since most other forms of pleasure were taken away from them by death.

"Do you command it?" he asked experimentally.

"I do not. Do I have to?", she replied curtly. "You are a Forsaken. My subjects will always have their free will."

"Why me, then?" Blightcaller pressed on. This was a sign that he was closer to surrender.

"As a former human from Lordaeron and a ranger, you're familiar with the woodlands of Eastweald better than myself", she had a ready-made answer. "We cannot venture through certain main roads, lest we'll be recognized by those we knew in life and raise their suspicion. The Ranger-General and her deputy do not patrol king Menethil’s territory without permission. We'll have to use sideways”.

She then turned to face him, adopting a softer tone.

“I require my champion and personal bodyguard for this task. I’ll have no other”, she appealed to his ego.

Sylvanas reached for the brass key between them again, and her bare fingers brushed against his gloved hand for a brief moment as she palmed the metallic object. If he noticed, he did not say a thing. Since they were raised in undeath, they rarely touched one another.

"We need to be here to defend the Undercity", he said, but she could feel his resistance weakening. "They will try to avenge Teldrassil, sooner rather than later. The fleabags of Gilneas won’t miss an opportunity--".

"We won't be missing time. Zidormi will return us to the exact same moment in which we left. We have nothing to lose - on the contrary", said Sylvanas.

She exhaled useless air, which she did not know her reanimated lungs held. "I need you, Nathanos".

He acquiesced at that: "as my queen wishes".

Sylvanas stood up and donned her cloak again, signalling the end of the discussion. She was pleased to notice how Blightcaller's red-glimmering eyes were following her body movements as she was tightening the clasp around her. In her undeath, she retained the same waist he used to wrap his arms around, in their past lives. Would he still deify her as much had he known about her fears, self-doubt and petty wants - and of that slip in Darkshore? 

"We leave at dawn", she said before he closed the thick wooden door behind him. This will be the beginning of the Alliance’s downfall, her greatest achievement as the Horde’s warchief.

She did not ask him to stay and keep her company for a bit longer.


	5. Tirisfal Glades

Nathanos Blightcaller sat on a decrepit stairwell at the ruins of Lordaeron, a small matted piece of woolcloth in his hand, and polished his weapons meticulously. The axe’s blade still had small specks of dried Kaldorei blood on it - marks which he took pride in, and almost regretted having to clean up. Killing their enemies was satisfying, like pulling out nails with the back of a hammer. It was a young woman, he recalls. A tree-rat Darnassian warrioress. Was - past tense. 

He inspected the dried blood closely, commending himself for a job well done. The night slowly ran out. When dawn seemed to be approaching, he rose to his full, impressive height and started his stroll towards The edge of Tirisfal Glades.

He did not want to join his queen: the mere thought of having to spend time in the company of living humans; or worse - those snooty, snobby high elves, made him roll his eyes. He barely withstood their company in life - kept mostly to himself, at his family's stead, with his hounds. In a way, undeath was a release from the grand pretence that he gave a gnoll’s spittle about any of them. The Dark Lady had given him a carte blanche to linger in his family's farm, torture and kill them - her new enemies; an order he obeyed willingly. The only satisfying activity in an otherwise-empty, joyless quasi-existence. He kept striding, surrounded by the early-morning darkness of the woods.

This was always the unwritten agreement between them, then and now: she leads, he follows. He never strayed from the path she drew. 

Did she really think he would still remember how to navigate through the wilderness of the Northlands though? With every star that faded from the sky as the night waned, his doubts grew stronger.

He had noticed the subtle way in which she harnessed her feminine wiles to talk him into this mission. She still that sort of hold on him. Once, he used to think of Sylvanas as his _raison de'tre_ , but that was before the Lich King has turned him into the cold, empty shell that he was, capable of not much more than hating with a passion.

But he could still remember how she believed in him, time and again. Her voice reached out for him when his mind was invaded by the Lich King, as if through a thick layer of icy water, and he grasped on to it, climbed his way out to freedom. She had given up one of her val’kyrs - her only protection from a sure fate of eternal damnation - to restore his strength. Yet, when he tried to reminisce over their past lives, it often felt as if he was trying to spot a copper coin in the bottom of a ten foot deep fountain. 

It is pointless to dwell in those matters anyway, he chided himself. They have a war to wage. 

On a small hill in front of him, next to the passage to the Plaguelands, a small beam of light radiated, signalling Zidormi's location. Nathanos had no trouble spotting her: any light was foreign in the dark skies of Tirisfal Glades, and she stood out easily. Zidormi's gaze studied him as he came closer. He assumed the dragon came up with this mission to satisfy her own petty curiosity. She’s fortunate that Sylvanas did not cut off her wings.

"You're afraid that you do not remember how to be among the living anymore", said Zirdormi without greeting him. "That you will not be able to disguise yourselves as one of them".

Nathanos said nothing, but narrowed his gaze hostilely at the dragon's observation.

"You will be fine. Death and life are two sides of the same coin", she reassured him. "It may be simpler than it seems".

And undeath? A side of what is this pitiful existence exactly? "Enough with this idle prattle already. What are you, a dragon or a fortune teller at the Darkmoon Faire?"

"Now, how exactly do we get back when we’ve accomplished our task?" interrupted Sylvanas's from behind him, her siren-like voice unfailing to steal his attention. He did not notice her approaching, and as he turned to face her, he wondered how much of the conversation she had overheard.

"You will", said Zidormi unfathomably, refusing to elaborate. Her hands motioned towards a wooden door, with no visible structure of any sort behind it - a portal, and the dragon stepped aside. Sylvanas used the brass key to unlock it.

”May your aim be true”, whispered Zidormi - alluding to the Farstriders they once were, but the two undead figures had already crossed to the other side.


	6. Old Lordaeron

Nathanos Marris opened his eyes to a bright, blue sky, few fluffy cotton-like clouds floating in them. When he squinted, he could almost imagine the shapes of the white sheep from his family's farmstead in them.

The sun was hidden by a thick canopy of tall pine trees. A wild hippogryph in flight passed above him, probably making its way back to the now-warmer lands. He realized he was lying in a verdant field covered with peaceblooms, and the flowers' scent carried easily to his now-human nostrils in the spring air. Green blades of grass tickled his arms. He raised his hands in the air and gazed at his own fingers in astonishment, touched the hairs on his arms, then ran his fingers through his hair. Distractedly, he felt his stubble, and noted that he needed to shave. Nathanos had a pulse, a strong, steady one. He filled his lungs with fresh air, and relished the moment.

A heavy weight, the anger that was instilled in him by the lich king and never waned - even after he was liberated from his hold, was lifted off his chest.

"I don't think this is real", Sylvanas spoke first, in a softer lilt that lacked her regular echoing rasp of a banshee. 

He turned to face her questioningly, still too flabbergasted to speak. Sylvanas was sitting on the ground next to him, her golden hair escaping from her hood and tossed by the wind, shiny in the sunlight as if dotted with arcane dust. She was surrounded by the white-and-yellow wildflowers. A goddess of nature magic, he thought. The red glimmer in her eyes was replaced by the old sapphire-blue Quel'dorei one, and her skin was pale pink and lightly flushed. Stop gawking, you moron, he commanded himself - before she catches you and chides you for it.

Nathanos opened his mouth to speak, testing his vocal cords. “It isn’t?” 

Sylvanas’s’ eyebrows furrowed. "I don't feel any less dead than I was a few minutes ago", she continued. "It’s merely a very well-crafted magical illusion, probably".

"I beg to differ", he shook his head, enjoying the sensation of his muscles as he stretched.

"How can you tell?" asked Sylvanas in disbelief, and partly in ire.

A smile slowly formed on his lips when he chose the words carefully. There were multiple possible answers to that question, some of which involved humanly wants and desires he did not wish to disclose to her; so he simply said: "I'm... parched".

Nathanos went over his rucksack and checked what provisions they had. His old self was carried a bow, a quiver full of arrows, a waterskin and a few other personal belongings. His companion seemed to carry even less than him in her own satchel. He took a cautious sip of refreshing spring water, then waved the waterskin questioningly at Sylvanas. She turned it down with a huff.

"I reckon we're east of Andorhal", he noted as he stood up and brushed some grass off his leather armour. "If we make our way to the east, we should be able to cross Thondroril river by late afternoon, even if we avoid the main roads and go through the forest". Sylvanas was already up on her feet, her lengthy elven ears erected as she scanned the area.

"Well then. If we cross the river in the afternoon, then we ought to be in mid Eastweald by night time. We'll stop for the night and continue to Quel'thalas in the morning", commanded Sylvanas.

They walked through the fields, the only sound around them being the thump of their leather boots on the ground and the crunch of stepped-on tree branches. Few human villagers were seen in the distance. He recognised the neighboring farmsteads: Dalson’s, Felston’s, Gharron’s. They were working the land, or packaging their produce in large wooden crates - Nathanos realized that the harvest festival was approaching. 

***

_  
The breadbasket of Lordaeron, they used to call the smattering of farmlands around the area, he recalls. The first time he heard of the blight, he dismissed it as tall-tales and bollocks. Drunkards at the nearby raucous tavern south of him, in Darrowshire, were prone to creative storytelling of that sort. Pour some ale down their throats, get fiction in return. Nobody had heard of undeath, yet._

_Nathanos had more pressing matters to concern his mind with, such as who would water his crops when he’s out of town to train new rangers in Quel’thalas, and whether he’d find the time to sneak away for a while with the Ranger-General. Maybe he should pick nice wildflowers for her this time._

_When Nathanos came back home, eagerly climbing up the small paved road and opened the creaking wooden gate, he noticed it: the first patches of unnatural dead grass along his pumpkin patch. It consumed the flora, turning the weeds it found into foul, disgusting mockeries of what they used to be. Nathanos dared not touch them, even with his work gloves. He turned the soil with a hoe and frowned._

_His dogs, however, silly mutts that they were, were less cautious. The spotted one - he never named them, not wanting to get too attached - was starting to show symptoms of what his neighboring farm owners had described as ‘the plague’: the mutt’s fur seemed to respond to it in a similar manner as the soil. Patches of fur were missing, and the exposed flesh was blackened, gangrenous. If he did not think it impossible, he’d say that the hound was appeared to be decaying while still alive. The hound peered at his owner with big black button-like eyes, begging that he’d make the pain go away, but barely able to bark loudly enough to express its misery. The unnamed disease would claim it soon._

_With a heavy heart, Nathanos walked inside his farmhouse, hung his fine wooden bow and got his Dwarven rifle, which was placed by the door._

_“I’m sorry, pal”, he mumbled as he loaded the rifle. “This will be quick and painless, I promise”._  
  
_The sharp howl that escaped the dog’s mouth as the bullet pierced through his skull etched through Nathanos’s mind. His hounds were raised in undeath later, and this one always had a gaping hole next to his right eye, where the bullet had passed._  


***

Focus, he commanded himself and pushed the reverie away. These visions have frequented him more often lately, since the val’kyr ritual. He did not want her to notice this new weakness.

After a few hours of walking in companionable silence, he stopped by to rest against a picket fence covered in thick vines, circling what seemed like a winery.

He peered at Sylvanas searchingly. Her blue-gray eyes had little glimmer to them, and she pinched the bridge of her nose. The usually confident, proud even woman she was - in life and in death - did not seem comfortable in her own skin. 

"Are you feeling ill?" asked Nathanos.

"I've a mild headache. Nothing too serious", she replied tersely.

Nathanos approached closer and touched her leather-clad shoulder lightly in concern. She could be dehydrated.

"If my queen is willing to reconsider", he said and offered her the waterskin once more. "Just try it. One sip", he pleaded.  
  
Sylvanas took a cautious sip from the waterskin, her narrowed eyes staring directly into Nathanos' as she drank. She finished its contents hastily, and wiped her rosy lips against the back of her hand. As she extended the empty bottle to return it to him, he took it back with a satisfied grin. I guess she was living and breathing after all, he thought.

Sylvanas huffed in annoyance, and muttered "there, happy now?" - but he thought he saw her eyes’ healthier glow return. He won this argument, at least. His victories were scarce, and he embraced this one. "I suppose we'll need some grub too", he said with undisguised mirth.

The last real meal he had himself was human flesh, whom he cannibalized under the Lich King's control, the very moment before she liberated him. In undeath, nourishment was no longer a necessity. He winces in agony at that thought, the taste rising in his mouth again after all these years - then ordered himself to regain control of his mind again. 

As they continued walking, he chose to risk it and attempt a casual conversation with her. "Is there any meal that you crave?"

Sylvanas appeared to be considering the question, to his delight. He almost expected her to tell him off for even raising it. "My sister Vereesa's Sunday moonberry pastries", she eventually said longingly.

Nathanos glanced sideways at her. A pleasant memory of a certain morning in the Windrunner estate crawled forward, from a hidden place the very back of his mind.  
  
"I had those pastries, the morning after I made rank in The Farstriders", he said. "The ones with the syrupy sauce, right? You made me believe that you were the one who made them. Did you mislead me, Ranger-General?" He used her title to tease her a bit, in a playful tone of voice.

Sylvanas wore her best mock-irritated expression. "I may be a woman of many skills, but if you had tasted my cooking, Marris, you’d wish you had met your true death on the spot", she retorted, purposefully using his human surname as well. “It was all part of my grand plan to lure you to stay by my side in Quel’thalas, as I recall”.

He silently beamed at her words, not risking a true smile.

They continued their quiet stroll through the woods, but as they passed through an orchard of moonberries, he boyishly climbed over the fence, and picked a few handfuls for his queen, which he gathered in his cloak. The stolen berries were ripe and dark-red, and they stained both his cloak and her lips.

They made good time. From a distance, he could hear the flow of the Thondroril river, spilling into Darrowmere lake. Not even the foul plague, which had efficiently ravaged and destroyed almost all life in Lordaeron, could touch these waters. “Days are just drops in the river, to be lost always”, his father used to say, and for a moment, his unlife and the stench of the Undercity were washed away and forgotten.


	7. Past The River

Blightcaller is certainly enjoying this too much, thought Sylvanas after they crossed the bridge over the river marking the border to Eastweald. This is futile, a false hope. 

What if he refuses to return to current time once their mission is done and her family’s heirlooms were in her possession? He could, hypothetically, escape his own death this time, change his destiny and continue to live in this timeline. He could run off down south to Stormwind, save his own skin and leave her behind. Surely Nathanos wouldn't think twice about abandoning her. He was not by her side when Arthas plunged that cursed sword of his in her chest, penetrating her heart and tearing her soul apart from her physical body. She shut her eyes at the sharp pain that suddenly flooded her, stronger somehow now that she was inhabiting her living body. Would she find it in herself to shoot a poisoned arrow in Nathanos’ neck if he'd betray her like that?  
  
I’ll do what I must, she decided. I left most emotions behind me, on that blackened earth of the Dead Scar.

She crouched on the ground to inspect fresh, eerie footprints. Unholy magic, thick and pervasive, flooded her senses.

"Two toes. They're trollish", she noted. "There aren't many troll tribes that roam these lands, correct?"

Nathanos nodded. At least he’s not arguing about that, she was pleased. "Not Amani, I reckon. Most likely, the Mossflayer tribe. The Amani you know from the elven lands seldom venture this far south. If my memory serves me right, there were several sightings of them back in my day in the nearby villages”.

***

_  
It’s a sweltering-hot summer day, too hot for leather and chainmail armour. Four of them - Sylvanas, Lor’themar Theron and two other younger rangers they recruited for the task from Quel’lithien Lodge, are traveling together. White, noble Quel’dorei steeds elegantly trotted as they carried them south, their hooves raising a cloud of dust behind them as they hit the road._

_Lor’themar was reluctant to join, and protested once during their journey as well. “Don’t we have enough brutish forest trolls back home that we need to venture to human lands for this, Ranger-General?”_

_“Orders from above”, she shrugged, her forefinger pointing upwards._

_“As if you’re one to obey orders”, he grumbled._

_“When they make sense, I do. Prince Kael’thas is trying to bridge the gaps with the Alliance of Lordaeron by offering our aid. Besides, if there really are troll tribes invading human farms in Lordaeron, they could potentially ally themselves with the Amani and turn against us. You’d want to nip it in the bud, while they’re still weak”._

_They questioned a few passerby locals for directions. While human adults were often fascinated with elves - but politely disguised their curiosity, their young were less discreet about their awe. One little girl, a local villagers’ daughter, told Sylvanas that she wants hair like hers, and asked her if she can do any magic. Sylvanas pretended to conjure a copper coin from behind the girl’s ear. A group of priests, on their way to Tyr’s Hand, pointed them to the rumored farm where the latest supposed troll sighting had occurred._

_Sylvanas’s first visit to the Marris Stead was a short one - less than half an hour, all in all. The four of them strode along the footpath that led to the house, and she could tell they were overdressed for the occasion. It would have been easier to build trust if they were in casual clothing, she ruminated. The landlord seemed quite young to own the place: late twenties, tall, well-built, auburn hair and an attitude. He spoke eloquently for his class, and a book he left on the fence suggested he was well-read. Lor’themar and the young rangers were questioning him when she scouted the area for signs of troll presence. The footprints were wiped away by then, by the wind and rain._

_The human was less than keen to answer their questions and provide an elaborate description of the single troll he spotted. She stifled a chuckle when he kindly suggested that the pompous Lor’themar would harness his elven magical powers to make himself disappear._  
  
Sylvanas, who remained silent till that moment, stepped forward. 

_“I’d like a word alone with sir Marris here, Lor’themar”, asked Sylvanas. She bent down and inspected a patch of soil. Nathanos did not object, and when she glanced at his face, she realized he’s just a tad better than the rest of them at disguising his fascination with her classic Quel’dorei aesthetics - but not by much._

_“You live here by yourself, Mr. Marris?”_

_“My brother does too, for now”. He wiped the sweat off his forehead against his linen shirt, which sleeves were rolled up high. The sun had dotted his face with a few freckles, which Sylvanas found endearing and contradictory to his gruff demeanour._

_“And you’re a farmer, correct?”_

_Nathanos nodded._

_“And your brother?”_

_“He’s a farmer too”, he answered, but she could tell he was getting impatient._

_“Did you build this house?”_

_“My father did”._

_“What did your father do for a living, if I may ask, sir Marris?”_

_“He was a grand archmage at the Kirin Tor’s violet citadel, the high institute of magic of Lordaeron. He specialized in the arcane arts”._

_“Really?” She was genuinely surprised._

_“Nay. Farmer”, said Nathanos and rolled his eyes._

_“Look, I can take care of this place on my own. I don’t require any protection from elves, tooth fairies, harpies or any other external assistance, lady. Unless you’re in the mood to roll up your sleeves and pull out some weeds from my pumpkin patch”._

_She allowed herself a brief smile at that, as she looked directly into his eyes. She could tell he was distracted by her elven graces already. Good. “Mr. Marris”, she appealed to him warmly. “Just as generations of your blood have sowed seeds in these lands, mine have fired arrows at forest trolls. And I can assure you that this kind of threat is no laughing matter. Have you ever seen a shrunken head?”_

_He shook his head. “What the nether is a shrunken head?”_

_“These brutes believe that upon death, their enemy’s spirit lingers in the body for a while, before it leaves it to wreak havoc and vengeance upon its killer. This is overcome by decapitating the head of their enemy and shrinking it, using various unsavory methods of alchemy, salves, salts and voodoo magic”. She sees the grim expression on his face. “I did not mean to intimidated you”, she adds._

_“I’m not particularly squeamish”, he denied. She motions to invite him to lean against the fence by her side. He extended his hand, and she misinterpreted the movement for moment, thinking he’s about to touch her shoulder - but his fingers went for her quiver, and wrapped around the feathers on the tip of an arrow._

_“What are these for?”_

_“They’re fletchings”, she explained. “They’re used to improve the flight of arrows”._

_Nathanos Marris sighed deeply and let go of the arrow. “Your troll marauder should be fairly easy to catch. He had green skin, the color of moss”. He kicked a few pebbles on the ground, avoiding her eyes perhaps. “I reckon he poses no threat at this point. If he’s still alive at all, that is. You should look for one with a prominent limp”._

_“Oh?”_

_“I shot him”, he explained. “With an old Dwarven hunting rifle. A warning shot to his left foot , and then another one to his lower gut”._

_“I thought I heard you tell my rangers he was running all the way across the field”._

_“Indeed, he was”._

_Sylvanas walked up to measure the distance, pacing to the remote end of the field back to the fence against which the human was leaning._

_“Are you a hunter?”_

_“A hobbyist at best”, he replied._

_“That’s quite a distance for that shot”, she noted. “Even for my archers”._

_Nathanos shrugged, too proud to react, but she could tell that the compliment had pleased him._

_Sylvanas stretched on her feet, securing her bow and quiver back in place as she was preparing to depart. “You ought to come and train with us. You know where our Lordaeronian outpost is? Quel’Lithien Lodge, east of Stratholme city?”_

_While the farmer was still too stunned at her offer to protest, she fished out a rolled scroll from her leather satchel, tied with a blue satin ribbon. “They’ll let you in if you show them this permit, and tell them Ranger-General Windrunner sent you over”._

_“To train with the noble elven rangers? Surely I’d fit right in”, he snorted._

_“You can show up at midday. I’ll be training you myself in archery and close combat, at least initially. Grab a bow and a sword, protect your heartland yourself, Marris”. She smiled brightly and pressed the scroll into his palm, stroking his thumb in the process, and savoring the knowledge that his cold veneer of indifference seemed to have melted away._

_There was no need to await his response: he’ll be there. She was certain of it._

_As Sylvanas walked down the footpath leading to the main road, where her companions and their horses awaited, Lor’themar fixed her with an arrogant eye. His arms were crossed over his chest. “I couldn’t help overhearing about your… new pet project. Surely the prince is going to just love that - his Ranger-General spitting in the face of hundreds of years of Quel’dorei and Farstrider heritage”._

_Sylvanas grinned victoriously at him. “He has potential, Lor’themar”._

_“And you, Sylvanas Windrunner, have a penchant for trouble”, he grunted._

__  
***

Sylvanas snapped out of her reverie quickly, forcing herself to get back on track. Foolish living bodies and their tendency to dig up memories like that. She gathered a broken arrow from the ground, close to the footprint. "Those trolls were undead, Nathanos".

Another rustle of branches roused her. Sylvanas saw Nathanos turn around and nocked an arrow from his quiver swiftly. 

It happened fast: as if in perfect sync, they tracked and shot the target simultaneously. While Nathanos aimed for his feet, Sylvanas went straight for the neck. The troll shrieked once he fell on the ground, already incapacitated - but she stormed him, to deliver a killing blow. Her shortsword plunged into his jugular, in one swift ruthless motion. 

Both of them kneeled down to hover over the undead troll they felled. 

"Nathanos?" she said, panting heavily, the adrenaline still flooding her veins. The excitement of battle began to fade away, and she tried to relish the sensation.  
"Yes?" he replied in a muffled voice.

"I'm quite certain I'm alive now", she glanced at him for a brief second and sheathed her bloodletting shortsword again, standing proud over her fresh kill. She remembered yelling at Arthas on the battlefield that if he thinks she'd ever surrender, he clearly never fought elves before.

Nathanos’s face remained grim. “He, however, wasn’t quite among the living. It’s starting to spread already. Your wyrm has chosen quite a time for us, hasn’t she”.

Sylvanas hung her bow on her beack again. “So it seems. We might have less time than we thought to retrieve my family’s maps, Nathanos”. 

None of them wanted to relive the Scourge invasion and fall again, she was certain of that.


	8. Darrowshire

It was peculiar to almost-hope to be defeated by a single diseased, mindless zombie troll - strange enough Nathanos considered it to have been a fitting end to it than his walking-dead state. Part of his discomfort, it dawned on him, was for the mere fact that he had slain another being. Blightcaller’s heart, a decayed lump of muscle, wouldn’t skip a beat in his rotting chest over finishing off a lowly Scourge, but he was in Nathanos Marris's flesh now.

Sylvanas had a different transition into undeath than him: while he was raised by the Lich King's forces immediately, her own soul was brutally severed from her body for a long while before they were merged together again. Perhaps that was why her re-adapting to occupying a living form was so different than his? 

She still had the power to shift into her banshee form, a sight kept only for her worst enemies in battle, along with her powerful, deafening wail. He never witnessed it himself. 

Maybe eventually he’d upset her enough to earn it, with his cantankerous remarks. 

It seemed like an inevitable scenario, even. 

They decided it’d be safe enough to stop by at the inn in Darrowshire for a decent meal. The simple cabin was decorated with colorful floral wreaths for the harvest festival. An old acquaintance stopped Nathanos at the entrance for a small talk, only for an excuse to give Sylvanas the once-over. There were few elves visiting in Darrowshire on most days, and she stood out in any case, with her fine Ranger-General armor and piercing-blue gaze. The man insisted on exchanging pleasantries, and Nathanos browsed through his memories to put a name to the face. 

***

_  
He used to live next door to the Redpaths here in Darrowshire. A cobbler maybe, or a leatherworker - he couldn’t quite remember. After Nathanos was turned into a wretched creature of plague, he lingered to haunt his family’s farm. Without a mind of his own, he had no desire to leave. The Lich King did not need him elsewhere. Here is fine. Just kill, kill, gnaw on them, bite hard, tear the flesh apart, he ordered, and Nathanos didn’t need to be asked twice. The primitive urge to spread the plague of undeath was the only desire burning in him._

_She came back for him. Nobody else did._

_After Sylvanas liberated him, he made a choice to stay there, just for a little while. “The Dark Lady could use an outpost outside of Undercity”, he argued. This was all he had left, after all. His broken, ruined land and his woman, except he would never be able to have her like he did in life. He did not even allow himself to want her anymore, foul walking corpse that he was. A beast-monster thing, a creature of nightmares._

_One cold night, as Nathanos was preoccupied with digging out yet another maggot from his left arm, they stormed the Marris stead. A group of them, with their blasted pitchforks and torches, was closing in on his door and yelling to the sky about how the undead were an abomination to their beloved holier-than-thou light, Scourge or Forsaken alike. He sighed deeply and grabbed a pickaxe he used before to remove large rocks from his fields, then hid along an outer wall, the excitement of battle slowly building in his chest - an adrenaline rush resembling the excitement of a living man’s._

_He could hear them screaming outside as they banged on the door with tight fists: “come out, Marris! We know exactly what you are now, and we won’t rest till you’re in the ground, where you belong!”_

_The man he just chatted with, a cobbler or leatherworker or whatnot, was the first to open the door by force. Nathanos lodged the pickaxe powerfully into his spine repeatedly, till he broke his body in two._

_The rest of the villagers dumped their makeshift weapons and torches, as they fled for their lives, screaming in horror._

_He fed what was left of him to his blighthounds._

__

***

Nathanos blinked to return to reality, and found himself wincing at his own past actions. Sylvanas neither noticed the horror in his eyes, nor seemed shaken by the words. Her gaze followed the man with alertness, assessing the risk.

“Who was that?” Asked Sylvanas. 

“I don’t recall his name. It is clearly of no importance”, he mumbled and emptied his glass quickly, letting the Dwarven ale go straight up to his head.

Nathanos glanced around, and some of the inn's patrons were peering at them curiously. A human and a elfling couple were not exactly the regular customer base. Most of the other human villagers were preoccupied with loud conversation, or their own mugs of ale, wasting their days away, not knowing they’re numbered. Sylvanas washed down her hearty meal with Dalaran port, served in an ornate goblet. 

"They're probably going to talk", muttered Nathanos, sensing the many sets of eyes on them. He sipped from his own drink.

"Let them talk", she waved her hand in dismissal. "They still do, to this very day. I'm quite certain that Dark Ranger Anya believes we're still... amorous", said Sylvanas in a sarcastic, amused tone, perhaps under the influence of the wine. 

Nathanos stared at her, speechless for what felt like forever. He then huffed in exasperation. 

"As if that's even a possibility", he shrugged and emptied his own drink. The undead could barely feel anything - the idea that they could feel lust was an entirely and absolutely far-fetched one. And even if he did - would she even lust for the rotten incarnation of him?

"Is it?" Sylvanas looked directly into his eyes, her eyes’ gray-blue sparkle leaving him bereft of words once more.  
  
Was this a rhetorical question?

The innkeeper approached to refill their drinks, before he was able to finish that thought, and brought the discussion to its premature ending.


	9. The Marris Stead

The Marris stead appeared in front of them, on top of a small hill north of Darrowshire. Its quaint countryside charm was still not lost upon her. Nathanos opened the familiar wooden gate and turned to Sylvanas. His lineage was embedded in these wooden beams, the heavy bricks of the small country house, the crops in the ground. “I assisted my father in constructing this very gate when I was younger, you know. He used to say, 'give me a day full of honest work, and a roof that never leaks, and I’ll be satisfied'”. 

Nathanos' hounds, who recognized Sylvanas from her previous visits, barked their greetings, and Nathanos was quick to feed them. She watched Nathanos ruffle their fur playfully, oblivious to her gaze. He seldom expressed any physical affection, in life and unlife alike, which had only challenged her back then to win him over. It was an easier mission than she first assessed, but an enjoyable one nonetheless. As the sun set down and tinted the sky blood-orange, and they stepped inside, she ran her finger along his cheeks, allowing her flirtatious side to manifest. It must be the wine, she thought.

"You need a shave. Don’t take off too much though", she commented, her elongated finger feeling the roughness of his stubble, drawing her outline of choice for his beard. He closed his eyes and hummed. They were both tired from their day's walk.

The main farmhouse was small and modestly furnished, but cosy. "My brother moved out a while ago, if I remember correctly. I can take his bedroom, and you can have the master bedroom", he paused, walking on eggshells, "if you wish".

Sylvanas hid a smile. Chivalrous as always. "I would like to bathe first", she asked, plucked a small dry leaf from her hair, from their journey through the woods.

"As you wish, my lady".

While Nathanos heated water over the fireplace to draw her a bath, she found some of her old clothes, bath salts and other belongings in a wooden wardrobe in the hallway. She watched him as he tested the temperature of the water.

As Sylvanas started untying the shoelaces on her knee-high leather boots, she noticed Nathanos was still standing there, watching her about to disrobe. He had a few drinks too, she recalled.

"Thank you. You may leave now", whispered Sylvanas. He closed the door behind him.

A pile of discarded Quel’dorei-blue and brown leather armor formed on the floor, and the mirror returned an image that taunted her: feminine curves, perhaps slightly rounder and more fertile-looking than the sharp corners her banshee-queen form held, reflected from the darkened glass. Both her sisters bore children, whereas her sons and daughters were an army of ichor-filled corpses, most of which with repurposed limbs harvested from other less-fortunate corpses. Her children of darkness. 

She’ll do what it takes so the Forsaken won’t die out, anything.

_Invite Nathanos to your bed tonight. This could be the last chance you have_ , she whispered to herself as she sunk into the old clawfoot tub. You only have one more day left to be alive, then it's back to the fear and long wait for damnation again. Heavy lies the head that wears the crown, they say, but she does not need to wear her banshee-queen’s crown yet in this timeline. This living body she was occupying ached for it. Her tired muscles, which did not feel quite like her own earlier, were slowly relaxing and embracing the warm, soapy water. She could yell for him to come back at once, squeeze into this tub with her right now, and give her a back rub. 

He would happily accommodate any whim of hers, after all.

How far could she really take it, though? Any thought of letting a man into her body again brought the horrid memory of Arthas' Frostmourne entering her chest, defiling her from the inside. She clenched her jaw.

***

_  
Sylvanas remembers her more-spectral banshee-form self, empty and bereft of a physical form, retrieving her own mangled corpse from an iron coffin. How she longed to be reunited with it. How hesitant she was when the time came to lift the heavy iron cover. Arthas could have had it burnt, but he chose to keep it - a twisted keepsake of his victory over her, to torment and mock her. This is what you were once, and will never be again._

_When she finally opened the iron coffin, the very first thing her banshee self noticed was the black scars under her eyes: the tears she shed when defiled permanently seared her skin, forever a weakling, a crying woman for all to see. The rest of her was bruised and battered beyond recognition, almost as badly as her soul._

_It took a decent amount of unholy magic to cover up the scars, but her body would never truly really feel like hers again: her soul was clumsily reattached to it, like a broken sword which blade was separated from the hilt, and could not be fitted back into it.  
_

***

She sunk further into the tub, and let the water grow comfortably cold. The only candle lighting the room melted away, till its light snuffed out.

Nathanos's bed was made with simple white linen sheets. She wore her cotton nightgown and crawled under them, trying to remember how this sleep thing works exactly.

The transition from wakefulness to slumber was seamless, but her dreams haunt her.  
  
She's sitting on the rocks at Darkshore, a few feet away from the waterline where the crabs stride, and captain Summermoon is talking to her - but Sylvanas cannot hear her voice. Is Sylvanas the one who is deaf, or is Delaryn mute? Even without a voice, Sylvanas feels Delaryn saying, "we live in hope of deliverance, from the darkness that surrounds us".

But the vision of Delaryn is quick to fade away. Sylvanas is suddenly a little girl in Eversong Woods again. She's on another shore half a world away from there, outside their estate at Windrunner village. Her older sister, Alleria, brought them here for a nice day at the beach. Vereesa, the youngest one, is with them as well - she’s picking fruit from a nearby tree, singing an elven a nursery rhyme: “apples in the summer are golden-sweet / every day, a passing complete”. 

Sylvanas hears the sound of a harp being played, somewhere in the distance, as she builds sandcastles and decorates them with seashells. 

"Alleria, where do demons come from?" asks wide-eyed Sylvanas, her feet buried in the sand.

"From the bottom of the Twisting Nether, I believe", answered her then-adolescent sister.

"And the naga, where do they come from?"

"From the depths of the ocean", says Alleria, growing impatient.

"And the murlocs, where are they from?" asks Sylvanas, testing Alleria's boundaries further.

Alleria sighs, her eyes hiding a smile. "They were once little Quel’dorei girls, whose big sisters put a curse on them, for asking way too many trifling question". She elbowed Sylvanas gently. 

Little Sylvanas sees through her older sister’s feigned threat and chuckles, but her laughter dies in her throat when she looks behind her back: The Dead Scar, the blighted land on which Arthas' armies made their way to The Sunwell, stretches across entire Quel'thalas now. Everything turns black - is this damnation again? The void surrounded her, dark and tangible.

She feels herself plummeting to her second death again, from the top of Icecrown Citadel to the sharp spikes of saronite on the ground. 

She lets out a shriek, loud enough to wake herself up, and Nathanos too, apparently - because his tall frame is standing at her door, thick eyebrows furrowed in concern. He's not wearing a shirt, and she remembers how much she liked playing with the sparse hair on his chest, a human trait she appreciated. His stubble is neater than it was before, and his hair is still a bit damp. "Is everything in order, Sylvanas?"

"Were you standing outside my door, eavesdropping?" She's upset with him, for no good reason.

"No. I heard a noise - never mind, I'll let you go back to sleep", he replies, defeated. Her heart as if pinched at his reaction - she's amazed that it is now capable of that again.

"Halt", Sylvanas calls. "Nathanos".

She pushes the covers aside, to make room for him, and gestured towards the empty side of the bed in invitation. Nathanos hesitated, but came to sit next to her on the bed. 

"Have I ever told you about my first death?"

"I don't think so". He must have known some of the details, but not the full picture.

"I'll tell you about mine, if you tell me about yours. Alright?"

He nodded slowly. They slipped under the cool covers, rested their heads on the pillows and told each other secrets in the dark. She spoke of her very last bloody battle with the crown prince of Lordaeron, how tired she was of it all, how she knew that throwing herself against his immense army of mindless monstrosities would lead to her downfall. In return, he told her of the day a filthy abomination, Ramstein The Gorger - all spilling guts and bulging eyeballs, barely attached together - darkened his doorstep.

“Sylvanas?”

“Yes?”

“Why did we burn down the Kaldorei’s tree? That wasn’t the initial plan - we were to funnel azerite out of Kalimdor through their port”.

She closed her eyes. “I’m not entirely sure”, she admitted. “I do know this: I want them dead, Nathanos. Each and every one of them”.

“You know”, his eyes light up and a scarce grin slowly forms on his face, “there’s a strong rumor that a plaque that you wrote decorates the Valley of Heroes, past the gates of Stormwind. It’s under a statue in Alleria’s memory, from before her return. Therefore, every citizen of Stormwind gets to honor the words of the Banshee Queen”.

“You're jesting”.

“I’m dead serious here. In the literal sense. Pardon the poor pun”. She grinned anyway.

“Perhaps they wouldn’t mind serving you after all”, he added.

“Nathanos, my champion - this is _exactly_ my kind of pillow talk”.

They chuckle before falling asleep, each on their respective side of the same bed, their bodies not touching - not even after their souls reached out to one another; but she felt his lips press a chase kiss to the corner of her mouth once she closed her eyes. 

This time, she had a relatively dreamless night's sleep.


	10. The Marris Stead - Cont'd

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here be smut. If you consider yourself smut-averse, now would be a good time to close this browser tab.

"The living are here!" screamed a dark spectre in Sylvanas's mind. 

Thin strips of light pushed in from under the master bedroom's curtains, forcing her eyes open. Her sleep-addled brain was quick to spot a human arm over her breast. Her hand reached out, instinct kicking in, and she swiftly wrapped her fingers around the dagger placed on the nightstand. As she was about to raise it up in the air, the human arm grabbed her by the wrist.

"Not so fast", said Nathanos warily.

Oh. Of course.

She half-turns to face the supposed human threat spooning her with a muscled arm.

"Let go of my hand at once, Marris", she enunciated.

"Were you thinking of stabbing me to death in my sleep, Ranger-General?" He asked in amusement while lowering her hand. His fingers were still caressing the fine skin of her inner wrist.

"Knock it off. I did not expect to find you here. I woke up and saw a human arm in front of my eyes, I was merely responding to a threat".

A grin formed on Nathanos' face. "And you thought - what? That the Alliance's 7th Legion battalion commenced their invasion here, in this kind of attire?”

With a raised eyebrow, Sylvanas turned around fully and glanced at him. His auburn hair was a mess, and he was naked from the waist up. His chest was rising up and down as he chuckled. It was an enjoyable sight, all in all. She pelted him playfully with a pillow. 

“You better go investigate the Gilnean threat in the doghouse outside too”, he advised. “It’s time for their walk”.

"Don't test me, Ranger-Lord".

He was still gloating. "Or what?"

Sylvanas considered his challenge for a moment. Regardless of her deep ingrained fear, her old, living self craved this dalliance. She turned around swiftly and straddled him, with little to no resistance from his end. She pinned both his wrists above his head. Her strong thighs limited his movement. It has been a while since she found herself in this position, but this body remembers. 

"Or you shall pay for it", she whispered in a smooth, honey-coated voice, and grinned at his surprise at her actions. 

He was getting aroused beneath her, she took note of that. 

Good. 

She rocked her hips once, twice, thrice to increase the effect, as her mouth hovered close to his funny-shaped stubby human ear. Nathanos’s mouth searched for hers, claimed a soft kiss from her lips. He was gentle, un-demanding even as he deepened the kiss. There was a faint taste of black coffee there, which he must have had before he crawled back to bed with her. 

Long-forgotten warmth spread through her veins, as delicate as fine arcane magic. She realized that his wrists were free now - she had let them go in her distraction. Who is she fooling - she could never harm him, her most loyal servant. The one thing from her past life she couldn’t leave behind, couldn’t let go of. This living body of hers was probably still infatuated with him, fragile flesh-and-blood that it was.

She can't allow for his hands to be free, though.

Sylvanas sits upright, her champion still beneath her, and takes off her nightgown slowly before tearing the fabric with her teeth and hands. It is then used to tie his hands to the headboard, and she tests the knot. 

Not too tight. Well then. 

She never asks for permission, and Nathanos does not put up any opposition. He’s hers to toy with now. A sense of regained control, her dominance asserted, soothes her previous fears.

***

_  
Her mind floats away during. It is a dewy Thalassian morning, on the tallest tree-branch in the Farstrider training grounds in southern Eversong. Not even the mana wyrms that swarm around the Farstrider Enclave dare to fly that high - it is one of the few places a Ranger-General can relish a moment of solitude as she supervises her underlings._

_Below her, she can hear the shouts of Halduron Brightwing, who commanded a dozen initiates - eleven elves and one human. Their arrows whistle as they fly towards the practice targets. Brightwing delivers his commands in Thalassian, not bothering to translate them to Common, and Sylvanas takes a mental note to have a word with him about it - even though she suspects her human protege is as fluent in the elven tongue as he is versed in archery by now. Perhaps he pretends not to be, in order to avoid engaging in conversation._

_He has made great progress, over-achiever that he was - enough to earn him a spot in the official Farstrider training course. Her tutelage certainly helped, but his persistence and perseverance had undoubtedly contributed to his success. In their last one-on-one skirmish battle, he agilely overpowered his elven benefactor and left her panting on the ground, unharmed but inexplicably excited._

_Something is not quite right, though - she cannot pinpoint what exactly, but as she communed with the ancient forest earlier, it felt different, unsettling. She witnessed an entire herd of wild Thalassian rabbits flee in terror. Cracked, brittle branches were carried by the winds. The unheard music of of Eversong was muffled. In retrospect, it may have seen the shape of things to come - a collective living creature that it was, it knew of the Scourge long before Arthas breached the first elfgate._

_The training session is now over, and the initiates left the training grounds._

_Two female Farstriders - Velonara and Anya - remain and continue to practice. Sylvanas was not particularly interested in their conversation, but it is audible from her sitting spot on a tree nonetheless. The younger of the two, Velonara, was a maiden engaged to a noble, and she was uncertain as to whether he’d humor his future wife’s ranger-warrior aspirations. Sylvanas suspects she may resign soon, but hoped the young lady would have a mind of her own._

_“Your grip is too loose”, comments Anya at Velonara as she adjusts her bow in her palm._

_“Your lips are too loose”, retorts Velonara - but tightens her fingers around the bow anyway. “I need to practice with non-stationary targets instead anyway. Windrunner said it would improve my aim significantly”._

_Anya frees her hair and gathers it again in a bun, to keep the strands away from her face as she shuts one eye and focuses on a target dummy, as if her life depended on it._

_“Why would she admit a human initiate anyway?” asked Velonara._

_Anya lowered her bow and arrow, and turned sideways to grin at Velonara with a head-tilt._

_Velonara rolled her eyes. “Please”._

_Anya burst in a laugh. “Your naïveté never fails to amuse me, Vel”._

_“He did ace the obstacle course yesterday. Came first. He’s probably going to pass the course”, noted Velonara. “Not bad, for a humie”._

_“He’s not passing anything if House Sunstrider has a say in it”, countered Anya. “Not even a human courtier of king Menethil would be welcome into our order, let alone some peasant, as skilled as he is. Besides, if the rumors are true, Kael’thas would want to move the… competition out of his way”._

_A loud thud cut off their conversation - they turned around to observe the Ranger-General landing on the the training ground. They were oblivious to the fact she was sitting just above them, till the moment she chose to jump down and make her appearance. A smug smile decorated Sylvanas’s already-beautiful features._

_“Ba’la dash, initiates”, she greeted them, enjoying the awkward moment. Both of them were staring at the ground in embarrassment as they returned the greeting, as if Eversong dirt was the most fascinating thing they ever laid their eyes upon._

_“I seem to have misplaced the Quel’thalas registry. Has any of you seen it? It is a blue leather-bound journal”, asked Sylvanas, still smiling brightly._

_The young initiates shook their heads._

_“Have you two lost your tongues in some unfortunate and bizarre archery accident?”_

_“We haven’t spotted a lost journal. We can search for it - where would be a good place to look?” asked Anya._

_“Thank you for the kind offer. This mishap is mine to rectify. You are dismissed, and forgiven”, said Sylvanas and watched them as they paced away from her, faster than their usual walking speed._

_A thorough search of the Farstrider Enclave and a couple of other notable locations yielded no results. By the time she made her way back to her quarters at the Farstrider Enclave, darkness had settled over Eversong._

_She hears a hesitant knock on her door and gets up, tightening her diaphanous purple mageweave robe around her. It’s partly see-through, but it’s dark enough in her room, even with the light emanating from the single candle on her dresser. Behind her door is no other than her human student._

_“Initiate-Ranger Marris”, she welcomes him with his newly-acquired title._

_“Ranger-General Windrunner”, he replies proudly, and she lets him in, arms crossed around her chest, just in case the robe is too revealing._

_“What brings you here at this hour?”_

_He then pulls out the Quel’thalas registry from behind his back and offers it to her. “I… I apologize for the late visit. I thought you might want this back. You must have left it at the obstacle course, I found it lying on the ground”._

_Sylvanas wraps her fingers around the journal, but her gaze pierces his._

_“I’ve been searching for it high and low”, she says in relief. “You have read it, then”._

_“I was unaware of its confidential contents at the time, and it was not warded by any magic. Yes, I have. And… I suppose I wanted to thank you in person for the kind words”._

_Sylvanas takes the registry, and opens it on the last page. A hand-made copy of a letter, mailed to the prince of Silvermoon, was attached there._

_She recognizes her own quill strokes on the parchment, her formal reply to the prince: ‘Kael'thas Sunstrider's dissention in regards to my decision to allow Nathanos Marris into the order is noted. It should also be noted that Nathanos - although a human - is one of the most gifted rangers I have ever had the pleasure of training [...] It is with these words, then, that I deny Kael's request in regards to Nathanos Marris. He will prove to be an invaluable ally. Mark my words.'_

_Sylvanas closes the notebook and places it safely on her nightstand, before walking back up to him._

_“There is no need to thank me. It’s not an act of kindness. You‘ve proven your mettle time and again. Your performance has been outstanding. I meant what I wrote, Nathanos”._

_“I will not disappoint you, then”._

_She walks closer and eyes him evenly. They are about the same height, and she likes the dark color of his pupils in the poor light._

_In the past, more than she enjoyed the pleasures of the flesh itself - Sylvanas Windrunner enjoyed her beautiful-yet-unobtainable status. Many a suitor tried their luck, only to be turned down politely and earn her an icy reputation. But something stirred within her now: she was wired, tense._

_She takes a step too close, and without making a conscious decision to throw all caution out the window, she hears herself whisper in his little human ear: “You did not come here just for a late-night delivery of the Quel’thalas registry, in case I have a diplomatic emergency - did you?”_

_Her lips briefly brush lightly against his earlobe as she raises the question. She can almost taste the salt of his skin._

_Nathanos was still for what seemed like eternity, his warm breath against her face the only sound in the room, and Sylvanas started considering the possibility she misinterpreted his intentions altogether - before he finally pulled her into his arms, and pressed his mouth against hers._

_That scruffy beard is surprisingly delightful, even when it scratches her delicate skin. The kiss turns deeper, rich, and before she thinks it through, both of them are on top of her bed. She’s quite certain she was the one who pushed him in that direction and mounted him._

_She’s sitting in his lap, removing his belt and unbuttoning his shirt eagerly. Would it be terribly rude if she had used a simple magical cantrip to pluck away all those pesky shirt lacings and buttons of his at once, she wonders? They’re slowing her down, after all._

_“Sylvanas, are you sure about this?” he asks, holding her hip in place with one hand and caressing her shoulder with the other. She has more to risk than him. She already put her reputation on the line by admitting him to the Farstriders' training program._

_Since when does he address her by her first name anyway?_

_Sylvanas challenges him with a raised eyebrow. “Are you?”_

_The only reply she gets is him untying the sash of her robe and slipping it over her shoulders. He doesn’t touch her right away, but pauses to marvel at her unfamiliar elven physique. She has to push his mouth onto her breasts impatiently, enthralled as he was, to encourage him to continue his exploration. When he finally takes a nipple between his lips, she lets out a joyous moan, louder than she intended, and she nips at his neck and jaw in return._

_“You’re quite bitey”, he comments from between her breasts, and rises up to cover her mouth again with his. A tactic to keep it busy, perhaps._

_He turns her on her back and peels off her underwear. Sylvanas doesn’t consider herself shy, but nobody looked at her before quite as Nathanos does now, and she’s certain she’s blushing under his admiring gaze, the heat flooding her cheeks. He doesn’t utter a word, but worships her body instead - tongue, fingers and lips travel along her frame, on a journey down south, till he settles between her legs._

_Nathanos raises his head to silently ask for permission, delivering another wet, ticklish, pleading kiss on her belly._

_This is more than she usually allows a first-timer, but Sylvanas is fond of him enough to part her legs and grant him access. Besides, she’s already very slick with desire - she craves to feel his voracious mouth on her._

_The tickle of his beard makes her shudder as he kisses her inner thigh. Once he finds the tiny, sensitive bundle of nerves between her legs and settles there, giving it the same devoted treatment as he gave her mouth and nipples earlier, she can no longer suppress her moans._

_These walls are fairly thin, and the rest of the Farstriders’ upper ranks are across them, but she couldn’t care less now - the pleasure sweeps her, too overwhelming to think clearly._

_He laps at her eagerly, with the same dedication she had seen him demonstrate in battle and nowhere else. She’s right on the edge of a mind-shattering climax, it’s almost there, and she hears herself tell him not to stop, don't stop don’t stop don’t stop, just a few more brush-strokes of his tongue on her and she’s there. But he defies her anyway and climbs back up._

_As soon as Sylvanas opens her mouth to protest, he positions himself to enter her . He’s slow and careful, and her inner walls hug him tightly. He feels huge and hot inside, stretching her enough to regret she didn’t get a good look earlier, didn't get a chance to touch and feel him throbbing in her palm._

_Curiosity rises in her, demanding to see if she could take his full length into her mouth, run her tongue along every ridge and vein. Sylvanas is certain she could make him give up some of his unwavering self control this way, and yell some expletives in that charming Lordaeronian accent of his. There will be plenty of time for that later. But now, she wraps her arms and legs around him and nibbles on his sensitive earlobe._

_Their bodies silently negotiate a rhythm, then settle for one both seem to enjoy._

_“We need... to keep it down. That... haughty Ranger-Captain of your, Lor’themar, is looking for an excuse to... kick my ass all the way back to Eastweald”, he pants as he tries to speak in between thrusts, which grow rougher, deeper, more urgent. Her hips thrust back against his in answer._

_Sylvanas threads her fingers into his hair and pulls it lightly. “He cannot. This particular ass is mine now”. A possessive elven palm covers his right buttock to demonstrate._

_He brings his index and middle fingers close to her lips._

_“Lick these for me”, he asks. “Please”._

_Whatever strategy he has in mind is unclear, but she obeys nonetheless. He then drags his slickened fingers down, to the point where their bodies meet, and strokes her in circular motions while thrusting even harder than before._

_The delightful friction sets her nerve endings on fire. Sparks dance behind her closed eyelids, carrying her over the finishing line. The warm and salty skin of his neck absorbs most of the noises she produces. She feels her inner muscles squeezing him, contracting around him uncontrollably in pleasure. Her yelps soon wane into shallow breaths of panting, and she caresses his back._

_“Your turn, Marris”._

_It takes less than a dozen quick, rough thrusts for him to reach his own climax. He’s not as loud as her, thankfully, but she kisses him during anyway to swallow any moans of pleasure, just to be on the safe side. Even after he rolls off her lazily, he doesn’t quite let go and leaves one arm on her waist._

_“Impressive”, comments Sylvanas, just barely able to utter three whole syllables.  
“You may stay the night. I might be in the mood for a second helping in the morning”, she adds._

_“I have a patrol mission at ten O’clock”, mumbles Nathanos into the crux of her neck, slurring his speech, already semi-conscious._

_“We’ll get up early for a patrol of our own before then. Call it... extracurricular activities, if you will”, her lips curled into a satisfied smirk. “I know of an isolated place in the woods, next to a waterfall”._

_The sound of crashing, troubled waters would be loud enough to cover any wild sounds they make in the heat of passion, she hopes, expectant already._

_He hums his approval and runs a calloused finger along her lengthy ear, top to bottom, and it twitches in response, as if involuntarily._

_“Is that okay if I touch them like this?” he asked._

_Sylvanas, still euphoric and wet from her orgasm, giggles at him. “What is it with you humans and elf ears?” She considers the question in ernest. “They work the same way as yours, in case you wonder. Yes, you may touch them. It’s quite… nice, actually”._

_She tried her best to forget her duties, the qualms of the restless forest and the simple fact that humans have the life expectancy of a fruit-fly, compared to her people - without the help of magic, less than a century and they’re gone. She forgets that she cannot afford to get too attached to him, or it won’t be long before she has to attend his funeral._

_The last thing she sees before closing her eyes is the Quel’thalas registry, which she laid on her nightstand before this little tryst. Years after the scourging of Lordaeron, this document was long lost and forgotten - but Anya revealed to her that Nathanos stashed it in the bottom drawer of his desk, at the Undercity. How he even obtained it again, or to what end - she never dared to ask._

__


	11. The Marris Stead - Cont'd II

Does Sylvanas experience these resurfacing-memories too, wondered the now-sated Nathanos. She seems distracted at times. 

They’ve been quiet since she rolled off him and untied his hands. Once she closed her eyes, completely spent and content, he used the opportunity to look her over. Sylvanas is was too proud to hide her exposed body from him. Post-coital bliss granted her cheeks a nice rosy flush. She opened one eye to peer back at him, and lifts a shredded piece of what was her nightgown. She dabs it between her legs, to clean the fluids he left inside her.

Say something, you lovelorn idiot, Nathanos instructs himself; but he worried that if he opened his mouth - he’d end up telling her she was just as beautiful to him with or without blood flowing through her veins. Or that she didn’t have to lie about those moonberry pastries, because the morning after their third or fourth time - he would have been smitten with her just as much if she had fed him murloc excrements. Or that he would jump into the Twisting Nether, if she only asked, overly-emotional fool that he was. Is. 

A shave-and-a-haircut knock on the door disrupted him from forming the sentence. 

Not that he had an ending for it anyway.

Nathanos sighed deeply. Another knock demanded his attendance at the door.

“I wasn’t expecting company”, Nathanos whispers. Sylvanas hums and strokes his fingers lazily. “Get rid of them and come back to bed. We can dally a bit longer before we hit the road”, she orders in a promising tone, while he’s getting dressed to get the door. By the time he gets to it, though, his visitor just let himself in.

“Hey, Nath. It appears that I still have my key”, says Thereas Marris to his dumbfounded brother. They’re standing at the entrance, and Nathanos was unsure as to why he’s so uncomfortable in Thereas’s presence. “Did I wake you up?”

Nathanos shakes his head. “What brings you here, brother?” The niggling discomfort grew stronger. 

“I was just visiting in Darrowshire, I thought I’d swing by to see that glorified ranger brother of mine. I also left some belongings here that I wish to pick up. Hey, hey - are you alright?”

Nathanos tried his best to summon his most genuine friendly tone, then recalled he never actually had one in his human repertoire. “Of course I am. Why do you ask?”

Thereas eyed him eerily. Sylvanas, now dressed and brushing her golden tresses, walked into the small foyer.

“Greetings”, she said with a much warmer tone than Nathanos could ever pull off. Even without her full formal armor, her presence had a sense of regal authority. “I don’t believe we have officially met before”.

Nathanos introduced them, before she could make a remark about his manners, or lack thereof. 

“Thereas, this is Ranger-General Sylvanas Windrunner, my commanding officer from Quel’thalas. Sylvanas, this is Thereas, my older brother”. He observed the small bruises, teeth marks, on Sylvanas’s neck, just barely covered by her golden hair, noticeable enough to his perceptive brother. Not that he cared about that. This wasn’t what was bothering him. He wasn’t quite sure what was the root cause just yet, and increasingly feared learning it. 

Thereas and Sylvanas engaged in a brief polite conversation, before she excused herself to go make some tea, which Thereas turned down. He couldn’t stay long. 

The two brothers stayed in the foyer, and as soon as Sylvanas was outside of hearing distance, Thereas wore an amused expression and patted on Nathanos’s shoulder. 

“Well, I suppose this answers my question as to why my kid brother suddenly developed an interest in archery and decided to join the elven army”, he laughed. “Not that I can fault you for it, she’s… ” 

The realization on what exactly was gnawing at him finally sank on Nathanos. He had repressed those thoughts so expertly, it was almost a work of art, really. He heard the vague sound of a child’s laughter emanating from the farm’s yard, and then it hit him.

“Thereas”, he cut his brother off, then shut his eyes tightly before mustering the courage to utter the question stuck in his throat. “Where’s Stephon?”

“Oh, did I tell you I was tasked with looking after him for the day? He’s playing with your hounds outside. I hope they don’t bite”, said Thereas casually. “Do you want to come outside and say hello to your cousin?”

Nathanos shook his head in dismay. He pushed a curtains aside, to peer through the window. In the farm’s yard, he could see his young cousin throwing a stick at one of his hounds, as happy and careless as only a child his age can be, one with hair color features not unlike his own. His mind ran over their encounter in the Undercity. Nathanos barely recognized his cousin then, the holy paladin who he called him a fiend - justifiably so - and vowed to take his head. 

Shortly after, there was not much left of Stephon Marris - a pile of black ash and an unrecognizable, unnatural oily residue, which did not resemble any bodily fluid Blightcaller was acquainted with, even as an experienced murderer and torturer. The liquid form of a soul, with no body to contain it, he suddenly realized.

That, and an empty altar.

Thereas must have noticed his internal struggle - he did not even gather the belongings he spoke of earlier before he muttered, “I better get going. I promised his father I’d take him to see the harvest festivities and bring him back by midday. I… I’m sorry if I interrupted anything, brother”. 

Nathanos kept quiet at that. 

“My dogs won’t harm him. Tell him not to play in the woods behind Darrowshire after dark though. We spotted some… sickly-looking trolls while scouting there”, he said eventually. Thereas tips his hat and closes the door behind him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm not sure if the brother was ever canon or not. Probably not. I found this on some other fic here (look up Khayr on AO3, her work is amazing), and then on some forum post that pointed at some old wiki page, that's long gone. But it's a plot device so I'm using it.


	12. The Yard

Nathanos is shooting simple practice arrows at an old tree trunk outside. The wind isn’t playing along - it blows in the opposite direction, and this activity is generally less cathartic than he expected. Perhaps there’s no catharsis at all to learning how rotten to the core you really are. He wants to hate her for twisting his arm into sacrificing his cousin, he wants to hate the Lich King for turning him into this degenerate creature that he is - but he can only feel a rising wave of disgust and loathing towards himself. A sound of brittle branches breaking plays in his mind - but no, he has it all wrong: it’s his ribcage breaking, stomped on by Ramstein The Gorger and gods-know how many reanimated Scourge skeletons.

Sylvanas steps outside and sits on the picket fence, arms crossed over her chest. She must have seen his cousin too, from the farmhouse kitchen window, as his brother and Stephon headed down the footpath.

“You’re upset with me”, she says, equally displeased.

Another arrow flies from his bow, and completely misses his target. 

“You saw a sickeningly sweet red-headed little boy today . But need I remind you, he was an enemy of the Forsaken”, comments Sylvanas. “One who swore to slay as many as possible. They look at undeath and see the monsters hiding under their beds at night, not their former brethren. They would have preferred you six feet in the ground than on your feet and a Forsaken. They betrayed us. They HUNTED us down. They sent assassins from Stormwind especially for you, bounty hunters”.

He waits for her to finish her little speech, and nocks another arrow. 

“You were testing my loyalty”, he muttered, half to himself. “I was to choose between my flesh and blood and the Dark Lady herself. Well, I suppose you have your answer”.

“You think I was playing games with you, Nathanos?” I. Don’t. Play. Games”, she punctuated her words harshly. “Surely a cunning ranger such as yourself can see through the dragon’s ruse. She wanted you to see this”.

Nathanos perks an eyebrow. “You saw through it too. And yet you’re here. Have you stopped to ask yourself why, Sylvanas?”

She comes closer and lays her palm on his cheek, her touch softer than her harsh words as she changes the subject. “You should have seen yourself before the val’kyr’s gift. Vulnerable. Your flesh was decaying, wasting away. Nathanos. The dark magic used to reanimate the undead by Arthas was a weak one, concocted to create cannon-fodder Scourge only. I did not want to watch my champion wither into nothingness like that. I need you by my side”.

This has gone too far. They can turn back. He can talk sense into her, and maybe just this once, she’d hear him out and agree.

“Listen to me, Sylvanas”, he grabs her forcefully by the shoulders, almost rattling her. “We don’t have to do this. We don’t have to do any of this! We haven’t, yet - not in this timeline. We don’t even have to die painfully at the hands of the foul Scourge and that scum-of-the-earth prince of Lordaeron puppeteering them. We can --”

“We can what, Nathanos?!” She interrupts him, roaring. Her eyes are an icy, cold blue now. “Run away like cowards? Go where?! Stormwind? Theramore?! It would treasonous of you to even utter those options to your warchief now, even if they were viable and we’d be able to change our fate like that. I somehow doubt even the bronze dragonflight can”.

He only pauses to consider the options she raised. 

There are horses in his stable, the rest of their journey can be an easier, mounted one. They can ride down south to Hasic, sail to Kul Tiras and then to the kingdom of Stormwind. He’d build a new farm, grow crops, lead a quieter life, without the permanent dark presence of death around and inside of him. She could train archers in Elwynn forest, while he works the land and harvests the crops. Nobody would bat an eyelid at a human and elf couple there: both her sisters wed humans and had children with them. Their own children would probably be picked on in school for those funny long ears, but they will be as beautiful, stubborn and brilliant as her. He longed to argue with a smaller version of Sylvanas about petty things. His sheets will always smell like that rose-scented soap of hers. She could reunite with her sisters again.

Alas, Sylvanas bursted that dream bubble: “besides, I need to be there for my people in Quel’thalas the day he makes it past the elfgates, or else there will be nothing left of them the day after. This living-self version of mine… she wouldn’t let me abandon them”. 

He lets his hands drop from her shoulder, then kicks the picket fence powerfully in rage with his leather boot-clad foot. It is a familiar sensation to both Ranger-Lord Nathanos Marris and the Blightcaller: dull pain.

"We have to get going. I wish to retrieve my family's heirloom maps before the sun sets again", said Sylvanas, and Nathanos walked back inside the house, to pack up.


	13. The Caverns of Time

“Chronalis, Tick”.

Zidormi’s gargantuan dragon form, coated with yellow-golden scales, turned to acknowledge to new presence in her lair. She dwelled in a cave, hidden in the twisting depths of the Caverns of Time. Even in the arid climate of Tanaris, the spacious underground lair - befitting her significant beastly dimensions - was relatively cool and damp.

“If you two are here, then who is guarding the entrance?” She rumbled in a hoarse voice, that was not a young drake’s anymore.

Two disguised drakes stepped inside. Neither the male guest, Chronalis, nor the female, Tick, bothered with formal greetings other than nods, and they let themselves in. Chronalis chose the magical guise of a Kaldorei night-elf man, a common one in the northern parts of Kalimdor; whereas his sibling, Tick, wobbled in wearing the compact shape of a teenie-tiny, pink-haired gnome. It was a poor, impractical choice for a disguise, if you were to ask Zidormi. If she weren’t being careful, she could have accidentally swatted her sister with one of her paws.

Out of politeness, Zidormi shape-shifted into her own humanoid guise: a dark-haired human in white-and-gold priestly vestments. She wouldn’t want to be perceived as condescending by towering over them, especially not Tick. Disputes are better settled when you can talk things over at an eye level, she believed.

Once she completed her transition into a human, Zidormi put away a glass bottle of sand art in the making. The colorful grains in the specific phial she was holding were of seconds and minutes from the War of The Ancients: it held some of her favorite moments, of victorious battles against mighty fel demons. The phial was about to join her collection of sand bottles and vases, shelved on the cave’s innermost wall.

“You weren’t in your usual spot at the Theramore harbor yesterday”, said Chronalis.

“You weren’t there tomorrow either”, said Tick. “I went ahead and checked next week and next year. Nope, gone. Nothing. Zilch. Squat”.  Her bubblegum-pink pigtails danced whenever she moved. 

They all shared the great duty - and the burden - of maintaining the ebb and flow of time. They were to preserve, but not to alter it - even when the temptation to undo the wrongdoings of mortals was great. They had no hierarchy about it between the three them, just a collective sense of mission; one with which the bronze dragonflight had been entrusted by the titans themselves, at the dawn of days.

Tick’s tone - even in this somewhat-comic Gnomish form she chose to wear - was an accusatory one, and Zidormi prepared her counter-arguments.

“Brother, sister. I was --- hey, careful there”, called out Zidormi as Chronalis’s amber-tipped staff brushed against the wall, and toppled an entire shelf of bottled grains of sand from various periods. Zidormi was swift enough to cast a quick spell, and the bottles were suspended in mid-air before they could meet the floor and shatter. She did not lose her cool.

“Apologies”, muttered Chronalis, and cast a spell of his own to place the fragile bottles back on the shelf.

“If you break it, you have to fix it”, warned Zidormi. “Kindly tread with more caution here, brother”.

“The same can be said to you”, said Chronalis. “Zidormi, have you been meddling with the affairs of mortals?”

“Define ‘meddling’ ”, replied Zidormi.

Chronalis and Tick peered at each other in distress. Their yellow-amber gazes were anxious. “We have to tell The Timeless One”, said Tick. Zidormi appeared peaceful still.

“You are well aware that father is immortal no more, and bereft of most of his former powers. Leave him be, to lick his wounds. Besides, Nozdormu has learned of my research already”.

Her visitors did not seem to find her answer reassuring. Chronalis prodded her further: “what research exactly? Do elaborate, Zidormi”.

“I’ve been visiting in Tirisfal Glades, a fogged, darkened land soon be consumed by blight and regrets, from one night to the next. A fascinating place, really. I trust that you know me enough to believe that I’d respect my call in any case”, said Zidormi in a perfectly-calm voice.

Chronalis and Tick exchanged looks between them. “No changes to the fabric of time?”

“No changes whatsoever by my own hands”, promised Zidormi. Not that this was her choice, but she knew her place in the grand scheme of things; a mere tiny cog in this machinery, this great grandfather clock. “I am but a mere observer there”.

“Then... why?” Tick and Chronalis pronounced the 'why' almost in unison.

“Perhaps the mortal archer will come around. He could, hypothetically speaking, make different choices, take different turns this time. I quite like him”, added Zidormi, and her visitors seemed far less convinced than they were a moment ago.

“Said nobody, ever”, commented Tick sardonically.

Zidormi allowed herself a brief huff of a chuckle. “Make that two actually: me and the banshee - albeit in a very different manner. Go outside now, you two. I have my sands to sort, and you have an entrance to guard”.

Zidormi reached out for another small phial of sand from her shelf. Where was I, she mumbled - or more importantly, _when_?

She removed the cork cap from the phial and resumed her research.


	14. Corin’s Crossing

In the depths of the Undercity and beyond them, Sylvanas Windrunner was known for harnessing her rage as a weapon against her enemies. Anger fueled and empowered her, an ever-burning flame in her chest - the only heat she could still experience. But now, forced to relive her past, she felt but slight irritation at her champion’s misguided hopes to rejoin the humans.  

Without her familiar fury, she couldn’t muster the willpower to harm him. Remnants of the warm haze from their earlier morning dalliance lingered in her chest, inexplicable and soft.  If anyone else would have made the suggestion of defecting to join the Alliance, they would have met a  _ very _  different fate.

What little anger she could summon was directed at herself, for her childish sentimentality.

In preparation for the journey ahead of them, she strapped her quiver, and dug up the sapphire pendant she found in her living self’s pocket as she got dressed. It was now hanging alongside the brass key Zidormi provided her, on the same string. Living Sylvanas used to cherish this old jewel. She made sure not to turn the pendant over and read her sister’s inscription. 

Nathanos hadn’t said a word since they hit the road, other than a grunt or two. It was decided to leave his horses behind - the human travel beasts would draw unwanted attention once they cross the first elfgate. Her living feet, clad in leather boots, brushed against the gravel they hit, their music entrancing.

“We need to stop at the nearest town for more arrows”, mumbled a living, auburn-haired Nathanos, almost inaudibly. She could tell how taut his long frame was.

“Very well. Make haste”.

The voice that left her throat was casual, but the tension since that early quarrel still stood as a brick wall between them.

They reached Corin’s Crossing in no time. The town was bustling with merchants, haggling customers, their mounts and loaded carts. When she lifted her eyes from the road, Sylvanas was nonplussed to see many familiar faces around: these were her people, the soon-to-be-dwellers of Undercity. Their features were later distorted by decay, but they were not beyond recognition in their intact, pre-Scourged human suits. She peered through a door of an alchemist’s shop, just as the shopkeeper was tidying up a supply of elixirs, concoctions and potions on the back shelves. The aroma of alchemy floods Sylvanas’s nostrils.

Nathanos excused himself and entered a general goods shop nearby. Sylvanas, left alone to wait and brood, breathed in the scent of the alchemist's goods. She permitted herself to sink into delirium, into the familiar dimness of the Undercity.

 

***

_  
The memory is imbued with a thick, unpleasant odor. _

_ To those who still had a decent sense of smell, the stench of the apothecarium was overwhelming. When Garrosh Hellscream had his living Orcs stationed here, to spectate and ensure the Forsaken apothecaries were not dabbling in plague-production - part of her relished seeing them struggle to catch a breath. The toxic fumes wafting from the cauldrons and vats, or even the green waste fluid flowing in the city’s canals, had little to no effect on Sylvanas herself. _

_She remembers uniting the broken people of Lordaeron in a large gathering. The very first Hallow’s End, their day of independence. A mob of thousands, an un-living tissue. Commoners or nobles, they were alike - freshly released from the Lich King’s grasp. Their race or social status in life were of no importance. With his whispers gone, they clung to her proverbial apron strings. Even with her dampened sense of smell, the stench was noticeable - but her expression did not reveal her repulsion. She either grew accustomed to it over the years, or her nostrils’ ability to sense their reekness deteriorated._

_Garrosh’s supervising soldiers were no longer here. The thought lifted her spirit: she was finally rid of that nuisance. The research to perfect the blight could continue uninterrupted._

_ Of course, this was not what prompted her visit in the Undercity’s apothecarium. _

_ Not today. _

_ She glanced around at the working apothecaries, immersed in their task so much that they did not notice her make her entrance. Many of them were once alchemists, who continued to pursue their scientific interest in the afterlife. Next to a large operating table was a pile of harvested organs - most of which long rotten, and in a state that would be deemed unsuitable for use as Forsaken spare parts. Instead, an undead surgeon was laboring on sewing them together into an abomination - a future Undercity guard, probably. The enormous, open-gut creation on the wooden table was quite repulsive, and she turned her head away in disdain, not daring to wince publicly. _

_ A few prisoners were held in cages. Test subjects, she recognized. One of them had a face that rang of distant familiarity - a young, auburn-haired human, a modest smattering of freckles decorating his face. She paid no special attention to him. _

_ “Here, kitty-kitty”, a throaty rasp was heard behind her. _

_ Sylvanas’s gaze fell on a Forsaken apothecary in gray-black robes, searching for something on a table populated with vials and herbs. On the floor next to him was his test subject: a gnome female, gagged, with hands tied behind her back. The apothecary, Keever was his name - she now recalled, seemed to be addressing her. _

_ “Keever has a special drink for you, kitty-cat”, the gangly undead announced to the gnome on the floor. She shook her head in terror as he brought the vial closer to her mouth, but her resistance was futile: Keever grabbed her by the neck and held her in place, as he forced the foul green liquid into her mouth. _

_ The gnome spat out some of the fluid, but Sylvanas could tell a decent amount made its way down her throat anyway. Spasms overtook the gnome, and she writhed in agony on the floor. Sylvanas cared not for the gnome’s pathetic cries of pain - she was an enemy, destined to serve a better purpose - Keever’s research would benefit from her suffering. At least she hoped this  was research. What was he trying to accomplish, anyway? _

_ “He’s trying to turn her into a cat”. _

_ Sylvanas turned around and turned sideways, to face the talker. She noticed him even before he uttered the raspy words, of course - her tracking skills were still sharp. It was master apothecary Faranell, the head of the Royal Apothecary Association. She must have spoken out loud. _

_ Once, Faranell was a human doctor and an alchemist, and now he was the founder and head of the operation that created the new strain of Forsaken blight. His yellow eyes still had a glint of sagacity in them, which stood out - especially since some of his underlings showed signs of brain rot and insanity. _

_ “A cat? To what end?” asked Sylvanas. _

_The master apothecary shrugged. “Some of the apothecaries have been dabbling in their own experiments. I gave them freedom to pursue their own projects when the orcs were about, shoving their noses into our cauldrons. Apothecary Keever here wants a pet cat, I suppose”._

_ The gnome - or ‘kitty’ - continued to convulse in pain on the floor, without displaying any signs of cat-like behavior. _

_“We are delighted to have you grace us with your attendance, Dark Lady”, said master apothecary Faranell in late greeting, but Sylvanas’s attention was elsewhere._

_ Keever was alternating between observing the gnome and scribbling something in his notepad. _

_ “Subject shows no signs to transformation into a feline”, he muttered. “Keever thinks that perhaps the formula needs a double dose of gromsblood”. _

_ “Why would he wish for a cat anyway?” Asked Sylvanas. _

_ “Gnomes make terrible pets”, shrugged Faranell. “It is beyond my wisdom to say, to be frank. I myself have little to no desire to care for animals, or any living or unliving being, for that matter. Apothecary Lydon had a pet frog too once, when I had him stationed in Tarren Mill. It was mostly for use as a test subject. Umpi was its name, I believe. Terrible croaking thing”. _

_Sylvanas arched an eyebrow. Faranell shrugged again._

_ “He used to kill and reanimate her repeatedly, for entertainment, until there wasn’t a sufficient amount of frog left to qualify as such. The repetitive croaking disturbed the townsfolk anyway”. _

_ Sylvanas turned to face Faranell fully. “The orcs are out of the picture. I expect your men to focus their efforts again on the blight, from now on”. _

_ The master apothecary nodded. “Yes, of course, Dark Lady. We have resumed our efforts and making progress as we speak”. _

_ Sylvanas smiled at that, pleased. “Good. I am most pleased to hear that. Now, as for that other matter. Do you have time for the examination we discussed?” _

_ “Yes, of course. Follow me”, he led her to a small hidden room at the end of a long corridor. _

___Sylvanas shut the door, ignoring Keever's maniacal cackle behind them, and the fact that he was pelting his test subject with small, brown pellets of cat food._ _She ensured the room was empty, apart from herself and the undead doctor, before she pulled the leather chestpiece all the way up to her sternum._

_ In the past, Sylvanas used to wear a breastplate that revealed most of her impressive muscled torso, but this was no longer an option: the pale skin of her upper belly was well preserved, compared to most of the undead - but an ugly diagonal black scar, just under her breast, marred it. The edges of it marked the entry wound caused by Frostmourne. The unholy magic she used only hid the permanent mark left by Arthas’s wretched sword, but the blasted thing resurfaced, refusing to let go of her. _

_ The master apothecary then bent over to examine the scar closely. _

_ Sylvanas did not feel any embarrassment when subjected to his medical gaze - she did, however, recognize the impropriety in caring about her appearance. Her corpse was in a much better state than most of the Forsaken, after all. This isn’t about shallow vanity, she told herself - revealing one’s wounds is a display of weakness, one she could not afford. The heavier armor that covered her midriff was somewhat limiting in combat. _

_ “Well? Is there anything you can do to treat this?” _

_ Master apothecary Faranell shook his head apologetically. _

_ “Dark Lady, as you are well aware - our research had focused on perfecting plague of undeath, for the use of the Forsaken agenda. We hardly spent any resources on looking for cures, by your own behest”. _

_ Sylvanas readjusted her armor. “Indeed. Do not cease your research. I am fully aware of its importance for our people’s long-term goals”. _

_ “I would have offered you some pain-relief salves, but I suspect they would not be too effective”, said Faranell. _

_ Sylvanas dismissed him, and was left alone to ponder her fate in the windowless room. _

_ She never asked for any of this. Her sister, Alleria, was supposed to be the next Ranger-General; but fled through the Dark Portal and left her with no more than a piece of jewelry, and an entire nation to lead and protect. The previous warchief, Vol’jin, demanded she’d step forward from the comfort of her shadows, to don the mantle of the warchief, quoting the words of some spirits she did not believe in. _

_  
And now she was seated there, in a back room on a cold stone bench, with what was about to be a gaping black hole in her stomach, holding a palm against it like the proverbial child who plugged a dam with one finger, till he could not hold it in place any longer. _

_The Banshee Queen then shut her eyes and cursed them all._

 

***

Sylvanas opened her eyes to the busy commerce intersection of Corin’s Crossing around her. These memories - visions - could be a side effect of chronomancy, the intricate temporal magic that only the dragons could fully comprehend. I can control them, if I wish, she mused. 

Nathanos emerged from the shop to return to take his place by her side, perhaps with a barely-noticeable limp. He took it out on the fence earlier - was he in pain at all?

“How fares your foot?” She asked.

He replied with an eyebrow raised and a questioning hum.

Sylvanas motioned at the ground, towards the foot he used to kick the fence. “I need to know if we are to go back and get your horses after all”.

“It is fine”, he muttered. He was never a particularly talkative one. Whatever occupied his thoughts, he usually kept to himself.

They resumed their walk, northbound, and Sylvanas tested her power of will: she attempted to summon the earlier vision again.   
  


***

 

_ She was back at the makeshift examination room in the bowels of Undercity, still sitting on the same stone bench after Faranell’s departure. _

_ When one of her the nine val’kyrs from Icecrown made her appearance in the room, Sylvanas was ready to ask to be left alone. Was this Kyra or Brynja? They were undistinguishable in their ghostly forms. When trapped in oblivion, she got to see their beautiful and strong living selves - but now, they were but translucent angel-fiends. _

_ “Lady Sylvanas”, said the val’kyr, her echoing cadence rang in a thick Vrykul accent. _

_ “Call me Umpi from now on”, muttered Sylvanas bitterly. _

_ “I heard your call. I am able to help with your plight”. _

_ The val’kyrs were bound to her now, and unlike herself when subjected to the influence of the Lich King - seem to fully accept having a new master, even suspiciously-enthused to sacrifice their own for her cause. Four of them returned to the shadowlands, to take her place already. Sylvanas, not a trusting individual in nature, could not fathom that. Was it not eternal damnation for them as it was for her? _

_ Sylvanas narrowed her eyes. “You offer your help - why?” _

_ “My sister, Annhylde The Caller… she judged you, and found you worthy”, said the val’kyr, hovering closer to Sylvanas’s side. Annhylde was the first of them to sacrifice herself to save Sylvanas. _

_ She laid her ethereal hand on Sylvanas’s blackened flesh, tracing the edges of the old wound through the leather that covered it. Sylvanas first flinched at the cold touch, and the twinge it brought. The strange pulsing magic emanating from the val’kyr’s fingers - along with the guttural foreign tongue chant the creature recited - kept her transfixed. _

_ The magic had no warmth to it. No comfort. _

_ When the spell was over, Sylvanas pulled up her leather armor again and gazed at her own midriff. The scar was gone, and in his place was her smooth, even if too-pale skin. Instinctively, she rubbed the place where the blackened flesh was before. These creatures’ magic was even more potent than known to her, she contemplated in awe. _

_ But the val’kyr appeared weakened now by the effort of her magic, though not to the point of speechlessness. _

_ “Your wounds... are gone. Agatha, Daschla and Arthura… four of us have left this world for you, and yet you do not trust us wholeheartedly. Lady Sylvanas, what will it take… for us to prove our loyalty to you?” _

_ Sylvanas readjusted her leather armor back into place and rose on her feet. “If you can restore the corpses of the undead, without self-sacrifice - then you can strengthen the rest of my people too. We are about to face the demons of the Burning Legion - and to prevail”. _

_ The val’kyr shook her head inexplicably. Even the simple movement was slowed, as if she was encased in honey. _

_ “How many Forsaken can you mend?” Sylvanas persisted. _

_ The weary val’kyr shook her head again.  _

_ Sylvanas was losing her patience. “Speak!” _

_ “Perhaps… a dozen... or a handful. Perhaps a single one, perhaps none. Depending on… how grave their wounds are, of what is left of their original flesh. A living being may be needed, a sacrifice. My magic… will be diluted… after, for a while, or even forever. Is this a price you are willing to pay, banshee?” _

_ This time, it was Sylvanas who kept silent. _

_ “Think of one of them who is dear to you, perhaps”, suggested the val’kyr before she ceased to hover and collapsed on the concrete floor of the apothecarium for a while, to replenish her own lost strength. _

 

***

 

When Sylvanas halted the vision, they had already reached the outer gates of Quel’Thalas. The north-Lordaeronian gravel road was replaced with pre-Thalassian, magic-imbued vegetation.

Nathanos was striding by her side still, artfully disguising his slight limp. She chose him over the others, gave him the val’kyr’s gift, and he followed her to the ends of the world relentlessly. Even in his rumination about defecting, he included her in his plans.

The day she found and released him from the control of the Scourge, and named him her champion - he bowed down with his broken body and swore his loyalty to her again, just as he did in life. And he kept that promise since.

_ I am yours, Dark Lady. For all my days, _  he announced back then, his voice rusted, as her Dark Rangers were witnessing with their bows ready. When she and her sisters were young, they once promised each other to get married together, one ceremony for the three of them. The memory of that oath was almost entirely lost. It struck her that that day, at the scourged ruins of the Marris stead, was the closest thing to wedding vows she’ll ever have. She wished to reconcile with her mate.

“Would you like me to take a look at that injured foot of yours?” offered Sylvanas, with more kindness than the pragmatic interest she expressed before.

He hesitated. “With respect, my queen, this may not something you can address with any of your pet-mending spells, since I’m not exactly a hunting hound”.

Sylvanas smiled and touched her palm to his cheek affectionately, feeling the shaven sandpapery texture.  
  
“No, you are not. You are much more than that to me, Nathanos”. 

She was suddenly delighted to sense him lean against her touch, and laying his own palm on hers to trace her fingertips. The warmth in his direct gaze dispelled what little anger she still held. A quick shudder of delight swept her, as if she was an excitable young girl in her family’s estate in the elven woods, hundreds of years ago, with a song in her heart and the flutter of butterflies in her belly. It was almost a cause for discomfort, foreign, unsettling and exhilarating as it was.

“You know I would never”--- his voice died in his throat.

“I know, my champion”, she whispered with rare mellowness. Self-restraint made Sylvanas suffice with that, for the time being.

She took a few steps and met the metal of the first elfgate. She removed the string around her neck and used the brass key to unlock it. It clicked as it fell into place. The outer elfgate creaked and slid open by itself, and they both stepped forward.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Apothecary Lydon’s frog is described on wowwiki with the following fantastic sentence: "Umpi ends the quest [22] Elixir of Suffering, and the quest ends Umpi." 
> 
> She must have had almost as many resurrections as Sylvanas, I had to throw her in.


	15. Highmountain

A pair of amber eyes glowed in the darkness of Talon Peak, Highmountain. 

It floated in the night air, the bestial head and body carrying them perfectly camouflaged into the wilderness - but the unmistakable glimmer of the predatory creature’s eyes was advancing in Dark Ranger Velonara’s direction. 

When it came to things that go bump in the night, Velonara had some experience, whether from her elven past-life or her current state of undeath. Not a demon this time, she assessed - the war with the Burning Legion was over, and most of those foul netherspawns were beaten to pulp. She emptied a quiver or two on them herself. Most likely, the eyes belonged to a Highmountain lion. She saw it in the pattern of its calculated movement; the way it was lurking for its prey. 

The beast wouldn’t reach her - she was guarding the hunter hall of Trueshot Lodge from atop a high watchtower. Besides, even scavenger animals, who fed on discarded caracasses, had no taste for undead flesh. Her long, well-practiced fingers nimbly found the nocking point on her bow: a small brass band, crimped onto the bowstring to mark the correct position. While the big cat posed no threat to her personally, its presence endangered the other hunters, who were sound asleep in their quarters.

The mountain lion motioned with grace that reminded her of the Eversong lynx, native to her homeland Quel’thalas. She pushed away a strand of gray hair that landed on her roman nose. There was a time when she could communicate wordlessly with forest animals, when her connection to wildlife was thought to never sever.

Velonara shrugged off the thoughts of distant pasts in far-off lands. The decision was an easy one: as soon as the animal paced close enough to the camping ground’s gate, Velonara released an arrow from her bow. The animal’s wild roar - unexpectedly loud for its size - tore through the silence of the cabin’s grounds, rousing its dwellers from their sleep. It then collapsed in defeat on the half-frozen earth. 

Velonara could hear the loud calls and chatter that ensued. Candles and torches lit up in the distance, and their holders marched closer just as Velonara climbed down the watchtower.

The animal writhed in pain in front of her, its previous menacing growls subsided to a house-cat’s mewling. Velonara’s poisoned arrow was lodged deep in its neck. A perfect shot, all in all. The specific tincture she dips her arrows in had a numbing, paralyzing effect. Soon the animal would feel nothing. 

A crowd gathered around the wounded beast and its slayer. 

“What happened here?” Asked some human, battling the cold with a blanket wrapped around his shoulders.

“The pretty rotter-lass shot one of’em big cats roamin’ the mountain, eh?” Said a bearded dwarf she recognized as Hemet Nessingway, carrying a large rifle in one hand, and and a lit lantern in the other.

“May the Earth-Mother forgive us for not sparing a life tonight”, said a tall tauren huntress regrettably, accompanied by a hound, that was sniffing the mountain lion. The feline ceased to move, apart from an occasional desperate blink.

Velonara fixed her with an emotionless stare in return. “It was about to raid our encampment for its next meal. You are welcome”, she spoke with a hair-raising voice that was beautiful once, but now spooked the living. Even other hunters often kept their distance. 

“Aye aye, ye do what ye must”, nodded Nessingwary as he peered at what was now a lifeless mountain lion. The rest of the pack dispersed back to their beds at the Trueshot Lodge, as a caretaker came to handle the disposal of the body. 

Nessingwary scratched his thick beard and grinned at Dark Ranger Velonara.

“So yer not a cat person, eh, lass?” He gave up the attempt to make conversation fairly quickly, and joined the rest of the slumbering hunters in their warm beds.

***

With the threat eliminated, Dark Ranger Velonara returned to her elevated vantage point atop to sentry tower, to stand guard. The chill of the night was fading away, making room for the foggy morning air. The last of the nocturnal vultures - a barking owl, she recognized - shrilled his goodbye, rousing the more-diurnal mountainous animals from their sleep. A thick layer of snow, yet to be melted by the first rays of spring sun, coated the boughs of the Douglas Fir trees surrounding the Trueshot Lodge. 

The graveyard shift was the longest one on the roster; Velonara, however, was one of the few undead members of The Unseen Path. They neither required sleep, nor were they disturbed by the frosty Highmountain nights, which made the task of guarding the ancient hunters’ lodge in the witching hours less inconvenient for them. Not that Velonara had better tasks to accomplish anyway, not since the defeat of The Burning Legion. 

She had lingered here, among those fellow hunters of all races and kingdoms, and awaited further orders. 

Soon enough, they will come. 

Perhaps that was exactly what a Dark Ranger needed, to dispel her unease of purposelessness, the permeating drudgery-turned-melancholy, which often accompanied undeath. The endless hours, no recess, no shut-eye, no laughter or fear. They say that the Lich King instilled the ever-burning rage in his victims as he raised them, to fuel them in battle - but Velonara was raised by Sylvanas, after she fell defending her homeland. She could barely summon enough anger towards anything, let alone the banshee who had plucked her soul away from the sweet tranquillity of death.

A movement in the bushes below her, on the mountain edge down south, caught her eye. It was a larger figure this time, unhurried . Her red-eyed gaze followed him as he slowly climbed his way through the lion’s den of Pinerock Basin, through Sanderhoof’s Ledge and eventually, to the main road leading to the lodge. Velonara raised her bow for the briefest of seconds, and lowered it: it was a tauren of the Highmountain tribe. They resided in the nearby village of Thunder Totem, and often came to trade and deliver goods to Unseen Path members. 

“Special delivery! Broken Isles Mail Service!” Called out the tauren in a deep, serene baritone. 

Behind her, in Trueshot Lodge, someone’s pet wolf howled loudly, as if to inform the locals about the approaching visitor. Below the sentry tower, a couple of early rising dwarves came to meet the tauren courier, and relieved him of his heavy sacks of various supplies and letters. They carried the goods inside the Lodge, and Velonara made her way down the watchtower and followed suit. 

She needn’t any supplies - she carved and fletched her own arrows with feathers she gathered, and food tasted like ash in her mouth anyway, but perhaps there’s a letter for her in there. The thought of news from the Undercity - essential intel or Dark Ranger Anya’s latest gossip, whichever it was, had her pacing to the lodge expectantly.

She wiped frozen mud off her boots at the entrance to the cabin. Several beast masters, Farstriders and archers were sifting through the parcels and sacks already. Vultures, she muttered to herself and rolled her eyes. Even with a common background, she could not relate to them - at least not to the living ones. 

“Death-Hunter” Moorgoth, an elf clad in black as usual, was among them. He scanned through a pile of letters, and Velonara observed as he spotted one particular envelope, which he coveted and tucked it into his vest quickly. His standard make-believe adopted sombre exterior was replaced by a sly, yet not-unattractive grin. 

Her suspicion rising, Velonara finished going over the pile without finding what she was looking for, and followed Moorgoth to the corner bar. 

The pandaren bartender was surprised to see her and too befuddled to speak for a moment. “Y-yes, lady, what would you like to drink?” 

She drew her dagger and laid on the counter, still holding the hilt. Moorgoth then laid his glass - hopefully of milk, at this hour of the morning - and turn around to peer at her in an expression of mixed fear and reverence. His voice was shaking when he spoke.

“L-lady Velonara, how mysterious of you to pay us a visit. Did I overhear something about you slaying a large cat? Hmm, what’s this?” He pointed carefully at the dagger on the counter. 

Velonara aimed the dagger at Moorgoth’s direction, then pierced him with the coldest possible stare she could summon. 

She answered in an acidic tone. “Call it my letter opener. I thought I’d have use for it now - one way, or another. What do you think, Moorgoth?”

He gulped and raised his hands in the air in mock-surrender. 

“Fine, fine. I have mail for you. I was going to safeguard it for you and deliver it personally later, when you’re fully awake, but I see you rose early”. 

He then slowly reached for the inside of his vest and drew a thin envelope, bearing the royal seal of The Banshee Queen. He held it up between his two annoyingly-living pink-skinned fingers.

“I do not sleep”. Velonara snatched the letter from him, and cracked open the seal with a long gray fingernail, the mail-thief completely forgotten for a moment. She unfolded the letter, hiding its contents from her companions. The fine penmanship was immediately familiar:

\----  
**“To the esteemed Dark Ranger Velonara,**

**In the name of the Forsaken people and the Horde, I would like commend you for your contribution to our grand victory against The Burning Legion. You have fought the wretched demons with the ferocity and fearlessness of the Forsaken, an unyielding force to be reckoned with. For that, you have my thanks, and that of your fellow Dark Rangers.**

**We shall not rest on our laurels now - the winds of war are blowing again. The Alliance, led by the weakling Anduin Wrynn, schemes to take what is rightfully ours, Undercity and entire Lordaeron. Our Deathstalkers’ intel suggests they will amass their troops at our city gates soon. We are to make sure they would regret that choice deeply. They shall cower in fear and crumble before the might of the Horde!**

**You are to return to Lordaeron immediately, to lead the Dark Rangers in battle. As many members of the Unseen Path are allied with Stormwind, you are to keep the circumstances of your sudden departure confidential.**

**May your arrows strike true, and lead us to victory once more.**

**Regards,**  
**Sylvanas Windrunner, The Banshee Queen**  
**Warchief of the Horde”**  
\---

Velonara folded the letter and stuffed it in her pocket. She realized Moorgoth was still gawking at her raptly.

“Well? What does it say? Dark and mysterious things?”

Velonara rolled her eyes. “It does not pertain to you”.

“Are you leaving?” 

Velonara blinked, startled. The seal was unbroken, he couldn’t have read it. “How did you know?” 

“I who have peered into the bleakest abyss, mastered the darkest shadows and stared demons in the eye, have a way to read people and tell these things”, he declared. “Okay, fine, you kind of move your lips and whisper some of the words when you read to yourself, to be honest”. The grin returned to his face. 

Velonara squinted, unamused. The confession, as well as his relentless efforts to charm her, ought to have no effect on her whatsoever.

“Would you stay for one last drink, at least?” He implored.

Velonara sheathed her dagger back in its place. “I do not drink either”, she paused for a moment. “I won’t be leaving today anyway - The Banshee’s Wail will moor in Stormheim in the morrow”.

“I guess I’ll see you around before then”, he smiled brightly at her. “We can say our proper goodbyes”.

***

Night returned, and met Velonara in her usual place, atop the watchtower, for the very last time.

Would she miss Highmountain? Doubtful. When the queen’s champion Nathanos Blightcaller dispatched her here, to “aid their efforts against the Legion, represent the Dark Rangers, and to find out what that secretive order of hunters was plotting” - to put it in his own words, Velonara had her doubts about this mission. 

When she hesitated for a mere second to accept it, Blightcaller barked: “did I stutter?!” The queen’s champion was not known for his diplomatic style, after all. The queen herself was more… persistently elegant about her commands, even when she pulled you from the grave, reanimated your corpse and demanded you grab a bow and fight for her. You had no choice but to obey.

The Unseen Path fought for greater causes: protecting the innocent and serve as the watchers of the wild; but since her lifeless corpse hit the blackened ground of Quel’thalas, she did not care for those things. The forests no longer sang to her, and the innocent were on their own. 

She spotted Moorgoth making his way up the sentry tower, and rolled her eyes.  
Fine.

Perhaps she could use some company. They never really talked, not since the incident in which he had an errand boy deliver her 13 black roses, and she rejected his courtship, albeit with a small gift of her own - her spare black hood. He was sporting the very same hood tonight. 

“I was hoping it’s not too late at night to apologize for my earlier faux pas with your mail”, Moorgoth said as he took his place by her side, leaning against the weather-beaten wooden railing of the watchtower. He drew a small flask from his breast pocket and took a swig. 

Velonara extended an open palm to him. 

“May I have some?”

Moorgoth was taken by surprise for a moment, and peered into her crimson eyes. In the poor light the stars hanging above them provided, she knew he probably couldn’t see her pallor, the flaking undead skin and the unnatural blue-gray shade of her lips. Not that he’d be put off by it, unfortunately - he believed Dark Rangers to be mysterious and alluring, the silly thing he was.

Velonara took a swig of her own from the flask, and swallowed the beverage down effortlessly. 

When she returned the flask, he asked, “well?”

“It tastes like nothing”, she shrugged. “Everything tastes and feels like nothing. I told you already. You crave death? Pine away for the undead, Moorgoth? I almost hope you’d get your wish soon enough”. As soon as the words left her mouth, they escalated on their own, somehow, and came out with more vitriol than planned.

“You’re mad at her, at least, or so it seems. At least that’s something”. He smiled and lowered his hood, pretending to be as indifferent as her to the cold night’s winds - but she could tell he was shivering, even with multiple layers of black and dark-blue leather armor. 

“What do you mean?”

“The Banshee Queen. Anger is a feeling too. You can feel some emotions”, he argued.

“Barely”, she shrugged. “Often times, there is a modicum of fury, a sliver of despair. But the dominant emotion is the sense of floating in the vacuum, with no purpose, no a one”, she sighed deeply.

What prompted this sudden unsolicited confession to her former suitor? Whatever it was, it did not seem to deter him.

Moorgoth crossed his arms over his chest, to maintain his body heat. “Yet, you still fight for her cause, willingly. It cannot be all bad”.

Velonara shrugged. “I serve the Banshee Queen. I do so because of an oath I took many years ago, as a Farstrider; and a duty to the ranger-general who mentored and promoted me, in life and beyond”, she whispered in the darkness, to Moorgoth, to herself, or to any other creature of the night around her, unnoticeable in the vast black expanse visible from the mountaintop. “And there is the simple fact that I have nowhere else to belong. The other races mostly dread and revile us as monstrosities”.

Moorgoth, in an effort to sate his curiosity - or perhaps to lighten up the gloomy atmosphere, asked: “hey, is it true that she once shrieked so loudly that the walls of Undercity cracked?” 

Velonara answered with a faint smile. “They had to replace two of the pillars at the War Quarter. We had a dozen burly orc peons brought over from Orgrimmar to repair the damage, and two goblin contractors to supervise them”.

Moorgoth chuckled, and she joined him; the sound of her own laughter rusted and foreign to her ears. 

“There’s another rumor I heard, in my… research of Dark Ranger culture. One that might contradict many of your own depictions of undeath”, he eyed her with caution. “The Banshee Queen has been known to show an unusual level of favoritism to her champion, so to speak. Some even argue they’re... romantically attached”. 

Velonara huffed in dismissal at that. “Nonsense”. After a short pause, she added: “You’re wrong. Foolishly, unequivocally wrong”. 

Her gaze stopped wandering over the mountain and the cabin below her, and instead fixated on the hunter by her side. Elven men were often full of themselves, but it was aggravating almost, how much life was in him - especially when he was careless, witless or lustful a corpse like her. 

He probably thought her a prudish maiden, after hearing the whispers of how she fell, too young to wed her betrothed noble. Little did he know that after her life came to its end, she wiped away the last remnants of The Scarlet Crusade from Tirisfal Glades, broke the ranks of the Shattered Hand in Draenor, fired many an arrow at the Legion’s demons. But Velonara was not one to kill-and-tell. If anything, he was the naive one between the two of them.

“Listen to me very carefully, Moorgoth”, her cold palm held the lapel of his shirt, pulling him closer to emphasize the urgency. “We’re heading for a bloody war with the Alliance. They want to end the Horde. Do you hear me? The pact that was established to annihilate the Burning Legion is now over. I need you to follow my instructions to the letter”.

Moorgoth nodded, seemingly distressed as she tightened the grasp on his shirt even further.

“Even if Lor’themar Theron calls the Sin’dorei back to Undercity, or any of the other warfronts, you are to do everything within your powers to stay here, and serve The Unseen Path. Your allegiance to the Unseen Path will exceed your Sin’dorei heritage. You will not venture outside of Highmountain until the war is over. Is that clear?”

He nodded with caution. “Crystal”.

Velonara sighed and let go of his shirt. It was futile anyway. She was not his commander, and even if she were, Moorgoth did not strike her as someone who would listen.

“I better leave”, mumbled Moorgoth as he straightened the new wrinkles off the shirt's fabric.

“I’m not done yet. Moorgoth?”

“Yes?”

“If you too were to fall in battle”, she paused to give more weight to her words, “if you get a choice - back to the grave, or back on your broken feet to be raised and fight once more, please choose the former. Rest in peace. If-- if you care for me at all, you will listen to my advice. Will you?” 

He nodded firmly again. “And if I don’t see you again…”

“What? Do you want another black hood of mine as a keepsake? Another article of clothing?” 

“Well, now that you mention it --”

“You’re not getting my unmentionables, Moorgoth”.

“Was worth a try”, he grinned and bowed deeply, not daring to embrace her. “Goodbye, Lady Velonara. May our paths cross again”.

Velonara offered no more than another faint smile in return. She followed Moorgoth as he made his way back to the lodge, away from the howling winds; perhaps to warm his hands in front of the burning fireplace. Something that approximated an emotion gnawed at her nerve endings; a fleeting thought, gone before she could give it a name, assign it a color. 

***

By dawn, a small crowd gathered at the docks of Dreadwake’s Landing in Stormheim, and awaited their transport. Velonara stood among them in silence. She saw a fierce warrior in each and every one of them. There were orcs, the tusks protruding from their harsh features; some bulky taurens, one nightborne, several Forsaken. Do they know they’re heading back to yet another battlefield? Did they receive letters like hers? None spoke as the caravel finally closed the distance to the shore. 

As the crowd rushed to get on board, Velonara removed her glove and bent down, reaching out to touch the waters of Ashild’s Bay. She thought of pleasures unknown to her, of missed opportunities and of coming home. Her fingers treaded the water, almost expecting them to be cold; but it felt like nothing still. She joined the rest, hugging the strap of her bow, ready to sail away and serve the Banshee Queen once more.


	16. Eversong

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some sexually explicit stuff, nothing overly graphic.

A summer breeze carried the southbound dust of Quel’thalas, blended with mints and exotic flowers’ pollen, to Nathanos Marris’s nostrils. A picturesque landscape, evergreen trees and clear rivers, surrounded him and his companion as they strode on. He waved his hand in the air in annoyance, to shoo away yet another impinging vision from his past. 

When reality formed around him again, it consisted of a sun-touched, pink-skinned Sylvanas Windrunner, peering at him with her brow raised in question. Her voice grounded him. “So you disagree with the defense plans.”

“With respect,” he trod with caution, “I do not question our current strategy - but the blight is a double-edged sword. Perhaps we ought to consider relocating the blight barrels outside the Undercity’s walls.”

“Your concern was duly noted. While it is indeed perilous, I rather leave Undercity uninhabitable for human occupants, if it comes to that.” 

He chose not to demur his queen any further. She was the one who trained him in warfare, after all. The cerulean blue jewel around her neck glinted in the sunlight, and he couldn’t help but noticing it. 

Sylvanas brushed her fingers against his arm casually. “The city will be evacuated by then from all civilians in any case. Those who fall to the blight, shall be raised again to bolster our ranks.” 

Nathanos couldn’t resist the urge to provoke her. This very morning, she had pointed out his weakness, for mourning the relative he sacrificed for Blightcaller’s suit of flesh. Yet, her choice of jewelry suggested she still held her sister dear. He stopped on his feet to pull her closer. His palms rested on her shoulders to steady her, as he studied the sky-blue jewel above her breast. A calloused forefinger moved as if on its own to touch the gem, surreptitiously savoring the little tactile pleasure from her delicate skin around it. The undead forget how sensitive living bodies can be to the simplest of touches; he sees it now. He turned the jewel over and read the inscription:  _ “To Sylvanas. Love always, Alleria." _

Could Sylvanas still care for her sister? Prior to their earlier encounter in the farmhouse, he barely remembered his own brother. Not once had the thought of Thereas’s fate crossed Blightcaller’s mind. He could have sent trackers, to find out. It is too late now. His undead self was released from the burdens of warmer emotions altogether, exempt of the regrets and heartbreak attached to them. Such freedoms go unseen to us, he mused. 

He let go of the necklace. “You still have this?”

Sylvanas shrugged, her expression growing distant. “Living Sylvanas does. It is forever lost in our time.”

“Yet, you wear it around your neck now. You could have stuffed it in your pocket.” He should have let go of the topic already, undoubtedly.

Much to his befuddlement, his teasing failed to irk her. Sylvanas’s own forefinger lifted his chin, in a motion she often used to hold his attention and he secretly relished. 

“Nathanos”, she opened softly. “Know that Alleria serves Stormwind now. Her loyalty is with the Wrynn whelp. You are the only one I can trust to execute the plan. ‘High overlord’ Saurfang is a weakling. Lor’themar and Baine’s loyalties are... questionable. I must know that you are with me on this. Do not spare Alleria’s life - certainly, not for me.”

This was a mission for The Blightcaller, not for him. She let her own fingernail trail downward along his jaw, then let go of it, much to his regret.

They’ll reach the Farstriders’ Enclave soon. There will be mounts there. How soon, he could not tell. Eversong woods was spread in front of them, so vast that it played with his perception of distance and depth.

  


***

  


_ Ranger Nathanos Marris was beginning to acknowledge that he was, in fact, completely and utterly lost.  _

_ He stepped off the marked path a while ago. When chosen, the route made sense. It was the same path used when he returned from his last visit home a fortnight ago. Now, however, he was certain that he passed the exact same willow tree twice or thrice already. A few cuss words, heard only by a passing spotted doe, leave his mouth. The doe skipped away briskly. _

_ The elven rangers could read the forest like an open book, tell the north with eyes closed. He thought he’d mastered this particular art too, but now was a bitter reminder that he wasn’t truly one of them yet. Lot’themar Theron and that other one, Halduron Not-so-bright-wing, would have revelled in this failure had it reached their ears. _

__ _ A clearing formed between the tall trees, where vegetation receded and the earth was exposed. There was a statue in its midst, of a fist-sized crystal, enveloped in twisting tree branches. Nathanos examined it briefly. A sanctum of some sort? He turned around and drew his weapon at a sudden rustle - but his opponents were swifter, and they outnumbered him.  _

_ A half dozen elves held their bows ready.  _ _ The proud one he assumed to be their leader called: “halt and identify yourself at once.” _

_ Most elves looked alike to him, yet there was something familiar about her pale golden hair, semi-hidden behind a green-and-gold cowl; about the confidence in the way she carried herself. He waited patiently for her to register his own Farstrider garb. It took a moment for her to realize her error and lower her longbow. You could assume the word of his membership in their order reached her. He never drew his own weapons. _

_ “Ranger Nathanos Marris”, he replied, unafraid of their little display of power. “I serve the Ranger-General of Silvermoon, just like you”.  _

_ The other rangers in her pack followed suit and lowered their bows, one after the other. _

_ “Much better,” he nodded and smirked at the rangers, who only glowered in return. “I don’t suppose you’re here guarding this bare patch of earth from human intruders, are you?” _

_ One of the archers, a hunter who stood right behind the leader, spoke in Elvish. His words could be loosely translated to ‘he does not know she’s your sister.’ _

_ Nathanos blinked as the coin dropped, and for a second, the genuine surprise made him lose his cool. “Alleria or Vereesa?”  _

_ “I am Alleria Windrunner. And you are a trespasser,” replied the ranger, insisting on the Common tongue, even after his proficiency in Thalassian was made obvious. “Leave now, human, for I will not extend the same courtesy to you as Sylvanas.” _

_ He snorted in derision. “I have every right - and duty - to pass here. My orders come from her”, he strode forward brazenly. “Luckily for you, I was just about to depart anyway.” _

_ “Good-bye, then,” she enunciated, and he did not bother to respond as he continued on, westbound. As he left the well-guarded clearing, and took a mental note of its location. _

  


_ *** _

The thud of a blunt object hitting the ground roused him again. 

A young Farstrider held an empty sack that previous held the object. There were two of them, dressed in the same green-brown garb. Whatever was in the sack before laid on the earth, hastily wrapped in sullied gray woolcloth. They were standing a few steps away from the Farstriders enclave. 

“It’s a raven, we think,” said one of the rangers to Sylvanas. “A species common in Lordaeron. Its malady might have driven it to fly here, perhaps to seek out a cure in the light of the Sunwell”.

Sylvanas crouched on the ground, and was about to unwrap the fabric, when Nathanos stiff-armed her. “You might not want to touch it with an ungloved hand, Ranger-General”, he used her title, keeping formal in front of the other archers. 

She donned her gloves before placing the wrapped object on the ground, and then carefully unveiled what was the corpse of a jet-black bird. It glowed in an unnatural green hue, and one of its wings had several missing feathers, and eerily decayed flesh. Nathanos turned his head away at the stench. It was not unlike the first whiff of the rot of Undercity, the day the val’kyr restored his corpse - along with his sense of smell.

Sylvanas addressed Nathanos first. “I’ve seen this raven in our city, the night before we left”. She then raised her head to the young Farstrider again. “Burn it at once,'' she ordered. 

The two peered at one another, and then at her.

“Yes, Ranger-General Windrunner. Do you not wish for a priest or an alchemist to study it first?” Dared one of the rangers. “There have been rumors of late, of a strange plague rising south of us”.

“You may do so, but be rid of it as soon as possible. Now, where did you find it?”

Both the youth rangers pointed in unison towards the Elrendar riverbank, a few dozen paces from there. 

Nathanos made a beeline to the riverbank, as Sylvanas stayed to question the two Farstriders further. Ready to draw an arrow from his quiver with one hand, and his dagger from its sheath with the other, he paced towards the river’s edge and scanned the surroundings warily. The wind rippled through the Elrendar’s water, just barely disturbing the red petals of water lilies floating through. He stood surefooted on the muddy earth. There was no sign of any other plagued wildlife nearby, just his own reflection in the water.

Sheer horror paralyzed Nathanos for a moment: the image in the water had a piercing-red stare. These were Blightcaller’s eyes, not his own. He turned around swiftly, instinctively, and almost lost the grip of his dagger on the ground in the process - how witless of him. Did he really expect his undead self to appear behind him?

When he looked ahead again, the undead man’s reflection was gone. In its place was Nathanos Marris’s auburn-haired one, and behind it - a woman in priestly garments. He rolled his eyes and turned around, not before emitting a loud grunt. 

“Look who’s here”, he sheathed his dagger back before facing Zidormi. “The meddlesome flying lizard. You’re supposed to maintain and protect time, not waste it.”

“Ranger-Lord Marris”, the dragon-disguised-as-woman greeted him before she crouched on the riverbank, to tread water with her fingers, not minding his snarky commentary.

“A beautiful Thalassian day, isn’t it? This journey must have roused pleasant memories”.

None that he wished to share with her, he thought. “That is, without a doubt, none of your bloody business, wyrm. What is it you want of me?”

“And I’m here because I thought I could make sense to you. I saw something, in Arathi, during the gathering with the Alliance members. And then again, a moment before the torching of Teldrassil,” she paused, as if waiting for him to protest. 

“I saw cracks on the surface, Nathanos; hesitation before executing orders. This war will wreak havoc across entire Azeroth. Both the Alliance and Horde will bleed. As her closest advisor, you’ve been witnessing your queen’s downward spiral into madness. Now tell me, Ranger-Lord: am I wrong?”

Nathanos gritted his teeth, debating with himself whether to respect there with a retort at all. He decided against it.

“I brought you two here to give you some perspective, and to remind you of who she was - of who YOU were. You are no shambling ghoul obeying a master blindly anymore, Nathanos. Think for yourself, question authority --”

“And do what exactly?” 

“Stop this war”. The dragon turned urgent, demanding. “She cares for you still, even her lifeless self. As stubborn as Sylvanas Windrunner is, she listens to your advice - does she not?”

Nathanos thought so when Sylvanas permitted the Arathi gathering, but the moment she chose to riddle all the Forsaken participants with lethal arrows, he doubted that his words held the same weight anymore.

“The Dark Lady’s mind is her own”.

“Do not be so sure of that,'' said Zidormi. “There are other forces at play here”.

“Like who, or what?! Hogwash. Say what you’re hinting already”.

Zidormi plucked a water lily that was within her reach, and brought it close to her nose. She inhaled the flower’s scent deeply. “Some truths are not for you, not yet. We shall speak again, when the time is right”.

He opened his mouth to second-guess her further, but she faded into another time, not letting him have the last word. The water lily that was in her palm a mere second ago descended slowly to the ground, and Nathanos Marris stomped it - on purpose. 

Outside the Farstriders’ enclave, Sylvanas was mounting her borrowed horse. 

“The rangers?” He asked as he saddled his own steed.

“Back on their patrol route,'' she replied succinctly.

“I found naught. Just the one plagued raven, then,” he said, neglecting to mention Zidormi. “If the Plaguelands are already being razed, how much time do we have left?”

Sylvanas considered the question gravely. “Not long. Do not worry about the wildlife for now,” she pulled the horse’s reins. “You were not here then. This is not how it commenced. Our forests were intact when Arthas and his army of undead broke through the gates”. 

As her words grew more somber, Nathanos wished her mind would not replay the day of Silvermoon’s fall. As competent a bodyguard as he was, he could not protect her from revisiting those horrors in her mind’s eye, and it pained him deeply. Last night, in their hushed, pre-somnolent confessions, she told him that Arthas let her give voice to her pain, but in that, she would inflict pain unto others. Rarely did she let her grief show.

The ride to Windrunner village was a short one. The dragon’s words gave him no rest, and he considered the consequences of revealing them to Sylvanas as they rode west. Later.

There was a grim moment, when they walked between the bodies of the fallen night elves in the scorched Darkshore, that made even Blightcaller give pause.  
They had better days. Before the Orcs, before the Scourge, the hands of the clocks in her house seemed to have ticked lazily, permitting them to take their time and savour each other's company. __

  


_ *** _

  


_ They arrived at her home, after a long day of hunting, for which they rewarded themselves with a few drinks at the The Wayfarer’s Rest, an overly-luxurious inn in Silvermoon he secretly loathed.  _

_ At the Windrunner estate, atop her oval bed, Nathanos learned that a tipsy Sylvanas is apparently even less amenable to take orders than a sober one. She writhed, wiggled and chuckled as he tried to help her remove her heavy chainmail armor. The last piece turned out to be trickier than the rest.  _

_ “Stop it, Marris, you’re tickling me on purpose,'' she exclaimed as he tried to unhook the clasps on her breastplate.  _

_ “Fine, leave it on. See how comfortable you find sleeping covered in enough plate for a dozen goblin siege engine vehicles,” he muttered just as the clasp gave in. A satisfied grin was hidden behind his red-brown beard. “So, you’re ticklish. And fairly inebriated.” _

_ “I am neither. How dare you,” she chided him, but her smile suggested otherwise.  _

_ Sylvanas, now clad in nothing more than her undergarments - just like him, had her back pressed to his chest. She writhed some more, her hip brushing against his groin suggestively. There wasn’t much fabric left between them, and the quick effect or her frottage must have been very clear to her. Nathanos savored the pleased hum of surprised that left her throat. _

_ “Nathanos, are you going to claim what is yours now, or would you prefer to continue arguing with your direct superior instead?” _

_ He considered her offer. There was not a single sane man - human, elf, troll and probably even some inanimate objects - who would refuse a proposition like that from a scantily-clad Sylvanas Windrunner. Earlier, in their hunting trip, he watched her slay a wild dragonhawk. When he ran his hands to caress her arms, lean flank and muscular abdomen, he pondered the contrast between these harder body parts and the softer ones. He thought of her peach-hued thighs, warm breasts and the buttery taste of her depths. At times, he found it difficult to settle the discrepancy between the fierce warrioress and his lover.  _

_ But the rush of victory from their hunt was wearing off, only to be replaced by the physical exhaustion. He pressed against her back and stroked her arms. “I’ll save it for later. We both need rest.” _

_ Once he wrapped one arm around her waist, and adjusted the fluffy pillow they shared, she turned her head to stare directly into his eyes. Up close, the bluish glow of her gaze pierced him anew. Even in the dark bedroom, he could see her devious half-smile. _

_ “Marris, you little pervert. You’re secretly a cuddler, aren’t you? And to think you just mocked me for being ticklish”. _

_ “You’re just disgruntled because you wanted to be the big spoon, aren’t you,” he quipped. _

_ “Shush now,'' she whispered. Few stars twinkled in the Quel’Thalas night sky outside the window, and the chirp of crickets matched the cadence of their relaxed breathing.  _

_ They could have fallen asleep, but he had to spoil it somehow. “I met your sister yesterday”.  _

_ “You did? In Silvermoon?” _

_ “In Silvermoon? Sure, we had a chinwag over a cup of tea at The Bazaar”, he rolled his eyes. “No, I ran into her in Eversong woods. In fact, she almost shot me”. _

_ Sylvanas chuckled softly. “That would be Alleria, then.” _

_ “They were guarding something. East of here. A statue perhaps. A crystal with vine-like branches holding it in place.” _

_ “East of here, you say”. _

_ Nathanos nodded. “Quite unsightly for a piece of art, if you ask me.” The dark bedroom went silent, then he asked: “what was it?” _

_ “Take a guess.” _

_ This was a test, and Nathanos accepted the challenge. “An artifact of some sort. The kind unmarked on maps. It might hold some magical power. Defensive magic.”  _

_ “Not half bad, Marris”, she commended him. “Based on your description, it was An'daroth, An'telas or An'owyn. An’daroth is the most likely answer, as it is just a few hundred paces to the north-east.” _

_ Sylvanas’ feet touched his. “Do you know about ley-lines, Nathanos?” _

_ He nodded. _

_ “An’daroth is a ley-line nexus, a hidden one. Only our kin know of its whereabouts. What you saw was a mooncrystal. It’s a part of a key to Ban'dinoriel, the impenetrable shield of arcane magic, erected to protect Silvermoon city.” _

_ “Which is why it is guarded by a ranger-captain and half a dozen archers.” He rubbed his beard in thought. “This explains why she was so secretive, then. If outsiders were to learn of this strategic location…“ He paused. “And yet, you’re telling me.” _

_ “You are one of us now.” _

_ He wouldn’t delude himself that the rest of her kin would ever agree. There was also the well-repressed knowledge, in the back of his head, that this affair of their was unsustainable and ill-considered. The room turned quiet again. He got up and located some of his clothes on the floor, around the foot of the bed. “I’m going to get a glass of water,” he mumbled as he was putting his pants back on. _

_ “Get me one too,” asked a semi-naked Sylvanas, crawling underneath the covers.  _

_ A smirk formed in the corner of his mouth. “You didn’t say the magic word. And to think I assumed you elves were all about magic.” _

_ “Quiet, lest I send you to Thuron's Livery, to clean the hawkstriders’ pens,” she stretched luxuriously on the silken sheets. The threat was delivered sweetly. _

_ He replied with a gentle kiss to her shoulder. “I’ll be right back.” _

_ Nathanos climbed down the staircase and found the door leading to the kitchen. The house was a convoluted maze, tall and imposing at the edge of this strange arcane land. He opened and closed a few oak cabinets, until he located the one that held clean glasses, and filled them unceremoniously with fresh springwater from a nearby jug on the countertop. _

_ Alleria Windrunner made no sound, and he was somewhat proud of himself for noticing her presence nonetheless, sitting with one leg bent on the windowsill, and the other dangling close to the floor. Her green-and-gold hood was lowered, and the two moons of Azeroth illuminated her judgemental features.  _

_ Rangers were perceptive, and Alleria was no different. She was quick to take in the barefoot human in front of her, holding not one but two drinks. If Sylvanas never told her about her new lover already, she was just made privy to their secret.  _

_ Alleria did not want him in her forest, and instead - she got him in her house, in her younger sister’s bed, no less. He grinned at the thought that his mere presence here was taunting her. Good. _

_ They stood there for a while in ominous silence. None spoke to break the deadlock.   _

_ Nathanos grew tired, and was about to end the standoff and leave the kitchen, a drink in each hand, when her voice called his name.  _

_ “Nathanos,” she said in what sounded like a genuine effort to appeal to his better nature. “Take good care of my little sister.” _

_ He answered with a dismissive huff. “Sylvanas is more than capable of taking care of herself.” _

_ “And yet, if you betray her trust - I will hunt you down. Here or in Lordaeron, I can track down anyone, anywhere.” _

_ “Have a fine evening, Ranger-Captain”. He left the dim-lit kitchen at that, and made his way back upstairs. _

 

_ *** _

  
The vision, regrettably, melted away. Their ride ended, and they were in front of the very same Winrunner estate, albeit in a different time. The Second War had already happened, the third one was approaching soon. Alleria crossed the Dark Portal, gone. She would not be here to berate him. To think that she dared question his loyalty to Sylvanas. He remained by her sister's side long after Alleria left.

“If your sister joins their attack on Undercity, on you, I will end her,” he announced, completely out of context. Sylvanas arched her neck, nonplused - yet pleased with the promise. 

“I know. “ She nodded in determination once, and unlocked the main door to her family’s estate. “Let us finish our task here first. The maps are in the sitting room.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It was made clear on the Battle of Lordaeron that Alleria and Blightcaller were already acquainted ("Look who joins the fray. Good, I was hoping you'd keep this interesting!"). I felt like exploring that.


End file.
